White House blasts Netanyahu, infers reversal of U.S. support in the U.N.’s Security Council

In early March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – in defiance of President Obama’s wishes – stood before a joint meeting of the United States Congress.

 

There, in full view of America and of the world, he delivered an impassioned plea outlining what he considered serious flaws with the in-progress terms and conditions of negotiations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S. concerning Iran’s march towards building a nuclear arsenal.

His speech quickly drew a searing blast of disapproval from the White House, and was characterized by the media as a ploy to win re-election in a nail-biting contest where Netanyahu was reportedly trailing his opponent, Isaac Herzog.

According to media reports, Herzog was thought to have been the favorite of the White House:  He was presumed to be far more pliable to the wishes of the Obama Administration’s push to convince Israel to relinquish territory that it occupied after the 1967 war.

 

However, Netanyahu’s unexpected come-from-behind electoral victory upset 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s apple cart.  His win was quickly followed by a second White House burst of disapproval even more intense than the first:

 

Netanyahu was accused of flipping his position concerning his alleged reversal about the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. He was criticized for his comments of Israeli Arabs “flocking” to the polls, and was accused of forming a last-minute alliance with hard-right Israeli political groups.

Barack Obama has consistently insisted that Israel revert to the borders that existed before the 1967 six-day war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

 

Nonetheless, Netanyahu has just as consistently maintained that Israel would not do that without iron-clad conditions to guarantee its security.  He recently said that he sees none of those now on the horizon.

What Netanyahu does see in the proposed Iranian deal which he so fiercely criticized is a largely one-sided, unverifiable agreement that will eliminate sanctions upon Iran, and facilitate the rise of an aggressive nuclear regime determined “to wipe Israel off the map.”

The security of any nation’s own citizens is at the apex of its responsibilities.  Without security you have nothing – not the basics of life – nothing.  This fundamental, existential premise is well-understood and internalized by the Israeli prime minister.

Israel is bounded to the north by Lebanon which is controlled by a militant Hezbollah.  To its northeast rise the Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria during the six-day 1967 war and annexed by Israel in 1981.

Staunch U.S. Ally, leader and visionary – prophet in his own time, yet ignored by the White House

Netanyahu looks up at the gallery in honor of Elie Wiesel. (Bergeron Screen Shot)

Tuesday morning, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, delivered an address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.

He expressed his deep reservations about the nature and risks of a nuclear agreement being negotiated between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States by Secretary of State John Kerry on behalf of President Barack Obama.

These talks are aimed at slowing – not halting – Iran’s march towards the development, acquisition and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, a goal that Iran’s leadership steadfastly maintains it has the right to do.

After carefully listening to Netanyahu’s message in its entirety and to his firm objections to the terms and conditions which he outlined as being at the core of the negotiations underway, I am able to confidently summarize our president’s offer to Iran in two short paragraphs:

A Goose Ducks below the Affordable Care Act

If you become sick or have an accident, and suddenly find yourself in need of life-saving healthcare, the outcome may be better were you a goose. 

Such a goose lives in the UK.  It was involved in an accident in West Yorkshire.  When its owner saw that it was unable to eat properly as a result of having lost its lower beak, its disability was remedied.

See an account of what happened in this brief video.

The foregoing comparison to the ACA may sound cynical, but is far from it.  Over four million Americans have had their private insurance plans cancelled by the terms and conditions of legislation incorporated into President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. For an estimated fifteen million Americans who have been covered under private, individual healthcare plans, there will be neither “Protection” nor “Affordability.”

The Slicing and Dicing of U.S. Healthcare

In 2010, when Nancy Pelosi uttered the now memorable words, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” she was being sincere.  Little did she realize that three years later the system would fail upon its rollout, and that people on individual health plans would have their insurance cancelled.

Furthermore, other people attempting to sign up for healthcare via the government-run Healthcare.gov portal are finding out that they can’t get in.  Or, if they do, cannot access the exchanges with the firm knowledge that they are properly enrolled and insured.

But that’s not all:  The systemic computer and systems design failure which was exposed on October 1, 2013 and which still persists is not the only problem.

Political Lines Drawn in the Sand. . . .

. . . don’t do much good for anyone.

Nonetheless, if there were an annual Intransigence Award for such behavior, I think that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and President Barack Obama would be vying for the top prize. 

Why split hairs?  Let’s have each nominee share the honors, as is sometimes the practice when awarding the Nobel Prize for a specific category.

President Shares Top Honor:  Barack Obama drew a line in the sand not so long ago, when he threatened to embroil this nation once more in one of the never-ending eruptions within The Middle East.

The Washington Sandbox

Credit:  Fox TV Screen Shot/Dick Bergeron

From November 4, 2008 when the charismatic oratory of  President Barack Obama lifted him to the U.S. Presidency,  the mood in the nation’s capital has since morphed from one of “Yes we can,” to “No can do.” Similarly,  the mantra of ”Hope and Change” has slithered into that of “Delusion and Stasis.”

Politicians within the Beltway are throwing sand into one another’s eyes, and most are holding to the position that none will stop this bullying play until someone – anyone – stops first.

Even worse, it resembles a modern-day version of gladiators fighting in the Roman Coliseum.  We Americans are being toyed with like lion bait in the sand pit below.

Sex, Obama and the Catholic Church

The fierce pushback by the Catholic bishops of the United States to the health care regulations introduced by Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services was highly predictable, and it reflected a major miscalculation by the Obama Administration.

HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, and President Obama
at the beginning of yesterday's press briefing on
health care regulations.  (TV Screenshot/Dick Bergeron)

Announced several weeks ago, those regulations would have compelled Catholic organizations such as hospitals, universities, and charities to pay for health care insurance coverage that includes contraception, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs.

This edict was facilitated by the czar-like authority which Kathleen Sebelius possesses under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).  In her pronouncement, she provided for a one-year cooling-off period, during which opponents would be expected to work out a conscience-clause solution that would presumably meet the needs of the Obama Administration and of Catholic service agencies.

But this meant that negotiations would extend well beyond the November, 2012 presidential election.  Apparently, the bishops and others smelled mendacity in the room.

The Campaign and the Presidency

There is an ocean of difference between waging a campaign studded with promises of hope and change and delivering on those promises.

There were many commitments made to the American people during Obama’s candidacy.  In the race for the 2008 presidential prize, I zeroed in on the one which I felt 100% certain that he would not deliver on if elected:  His commitment to begin the drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan by July, 2011.

Don’t ask me about all of my reasons why, because I could write an interminable essay on it, but the single most important point of skepticism is that he was expressing an idealistic point of view upon which I felt certain that he simply would miss the mark. 

In his recent book, “Obama’s Wars,” Bob Woodward telegraphed President Obama’s intent to extend the Afghanistan timeline when he wrote that the president would reveal a new strategy by December 2010.  Right on schedule, Mr. Obama now says that we are there until at least 2014.

What Mr. Obama did not explain is just what the end game is and how much it will cost us in more lives and treasure.  

American soldiers are being undermined by the inept leadership of Afghanistan’s puppet President Hamid Karzai who cares more about his personal security and precarious political position.  

The man hunkers down in the capital city of Kabul, the only part of Afghanistan over which he holds any degree of control, thanks to American delivered protection.  He is unsafe in his own country and shuns travel to his subjects outside of Kabul for that reason.

In gratitude, Karzai hampers U.S. military operations by demanding rules of engagement for our troops which endanger their lives.

 Meanwhile, his counterpart over the border in Pakistan refuses to grant American requests to extend the strike zone of U.S. drones in that country.  This further endangers American lives and reduces the chances of neutering key Jihadist killers who may gravitate to undeclared safe havens in Pakistan.

While speaking of his Afghanistan timeline extension, Mr. Obama did not specify the billions more which will be wasted on nation building projects in both of those countries, as the U.S. tries to drain its own economic swamp where those dollars could be put to better use.  This country can’t do it all for everybody else, especially for the ungrateful.

OK!  I know.  This is not the cheeriest of messages just a few days before Thanksgiving.  I promise the next post will be lighter, but some things need saying.

Thanks for reading.  Have a good week and remember, stay engaged.

IN REMEMBRANCE:  Forty-seven years ago today in 1963, our young President John F. Kennedy was gunned down while on a campaign tour in Dallas, Texas.  Also on this day, C.S. Lewis, the famed author of The Chronicles of Narnia, passed away of natural causes.

“Obama’s Wars”

I recently finished reading Bob Woodward’s latest book, Obama’s Wars.  The use of the plural in the title suggests to the reader that Woodward is about to discuss both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  But that’s not the case.  Woodward concentrates solely on Afghanistan. Iraq is nothing but a necessary reference, if not a distant memory.

Perhaps the most striking feature of Woodward’s 416-page work is the incredible access which this man has to the highest levels of elected, appointed and military policy makers within Washington’s Beltway, including the President.  As I paged through his work, that point comes through clearly, and I don’t think it’s a good thing: 

It puts Woodward in the position of being far too powerful as a sole-source filter and disseminator of insider information, much of which is classified.  The reason is simple:  No one can determine whether or not the distillation of the information which he presents to the reader is without bias, despite his impressive credentials.

There is also a potential conflict-of-interest related to his other position as an associate editor at The Washington Post.  For example, information from secret reports on wartime strategy was leaked to Woodward for his book and was also published in the Post.

Woodward’s writing in Obama’s Wars is highly documented, but the names of well-placed, unidentified sources from which he obtains much of his material is not available to readers.  

Other previously published sources are meticulously outlined in chapter notes.  Yet most of Woodward’s critical information and description of the relationships between major players seems to have been derived from what Woodward acknowledges as “primarily from background interviews and firsthand sources.”

According to journalistic protocol, those background sources cannot be identified by name, so that makes it possible for an author to construct a composite picture from interviews and to present it in such a way that pits one character in the drama against another.  There is much of this type of reporting in Obama’s Wars.  So which characters do you believe?

I recommend reading this book, but only with a highly critical eye (and not before bedtime!). 

It's Always the Other Guy

Yesterday, I listened to President Barack Obama’s speech outside the White House where he ‘appointed’ – well, not officially – Elizabeth Warren as head of a new consumer watchdog group, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Great! That’s just what we need: Another Washington bureaucracy that will spend millions of dollars hiring thousands of employees who, presumably, will save us from all of those bad bankers and wily Wall Street executives who allegedly have been stripping us of our hard-earned dollars and who, allegedly, led us head-long into this cash-strapped recession.

Well, it didn’t quite happen that way, even though Mr. Obama implied yesterday that it did when he held Wall Street and the banks solely responsible for the national financial fiasco which hit hard in the fall of 2008 and which is now lingering on for who knows how long.

The fact is that the policies set into motion by two powerful Congressional committees chaired by Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and by outgoing Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut were highly influential in setting up the dominoes which would fall with devastatingly shattering impact years later.

Complicit in this disaster were two quasi-federal lending agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which were pushing commercial banks to keep lowering lending standards so that more and more unqualified loans could be made to millions of people who would later default on them.

Yes, the banks accommodated this disastrous Washington policy, and Wall Street hedge fund managers who are still running rings around Washington ginned up the financial instruments which sounded the final gong in this game.

But long before the dominoes fell, a few stout-hearted federal employees testified before Barney’s Congressional Committee that the tsunami was coming its way: These people were marginalized, trivialized and told to beat it. Mr. Obama seems to have had a significant loss of memory about these causal factors.

At yesterday’s announcement, the President made an end run around the Senate confirmation process by naming Elizabeth Warren special adviser with full responsibilities for setting up and managing all of the operations for this new consumer agency. In effect, she will be its de facto director until Congress decides what to do about it.

I like this saying, “Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us – Ronald Reagan.”

Had enough pain yet?

The Gulf or The Cape?

First Lady Michelle Obama recently came home from an expensive vacation in Spain. Today, President Barack Obama and his family are beginning a 10-day vacation on secluded Blue Heron Farm, a 28-acre waterfront property in Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where they stayed last year.

I write this post with feelings that are only somewhat mixed: Any president of the United States is entitled to a break away from the pressure of what may be the world’s toughest job. But why this exclusive island resort in the northeast? Why now?

There is not only symbolism, but a good deal of substance behind every action that the President of the United States decides to take.

Both Mr. Obama and the First Lady have spent only a few days ‘vacationing’ in the Gulf to show their support for the region’s tourist businesses. But the latest was a mere one-day presidential photo-op in the Florida panhandle, and it was back to Washington.

No president ever gets away completely from his duties. Especially not in this super-connected electronic world. His/ (maybe someday her) responsibilities are simply too great. So any presidential vacation is really a working one peppered by hobnobbing with favored guests, and time alone to ponder his responsibilities in a quiet setting.

But why Martha’s Vineyard? Why not one or two locations along the Gulf Coast, where the hobnobbing can be with common people and where the president, quite frankly, has just blown a major opportunity to help reinvigorate the tourist, fishing, and petroleum industries of as many as five Gulf Coast states.

The New England tourist industry would not suffer one iota from his absence in the region this summer. But the same cannot be said for the businesses along the Gulf Coast which are flat on their backs.

The President has the right, but is it a wise choice? Somehow, for me, Obama’s decision is the wrong priority.

Just a thought. Stay cool. Thanks for reading. Stay engaged.

Naïve Bravado, Major Embarrassment

Today, President Barack Obama meets with General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan over an international controversy generated by an article appearing in Rolling Stone magazine.

Written by Michael Hastings, the article is full of quotes depicting a general and his staff disdainful of Beltway politics and politicians – including those in the White House – vis-à-vis this nation’s military commitments in Afghanistan. That is why the general will have his resignation in hand when he meets President Obama this morning.

However, although the President most assuredly will take the general to the woodshed privately, I am doubtful about what many pundits say will also happen – that McChrystal will be fired. The mission in Afghanistan, despite its dubious and non-credible objectives, needs to be concluded.

That war, like the one in Iraq, is not being fought to achieve a decisive victory. It is, for many reasons, a war that we are losing because there is no will in Washington to do what it takes to succeed.

We Americans know that. It is why we don’t want any more American casualties incurred in a far-away land administered by the corrupt, contemptuous, and untrustworthy leadership of Hamid Karsai.

It was very naïve of General McChrystal to give journalist Michael Hastings unfettered access to him and his staff for what turned out to be a very damaging article. Nonetheless, President Barack Obama has bigger fish to fry, and this is no time to change war horses in mid-stream.

Federal Judge Foils Obama’s Deep-Sea Drilling Moratorium

In a major policy defeat for President Barack Obama, Federal Judge Martin Feldman issued a ruling from Louisiana which reversed President Barack Obama’s six-month shutdown of 33 exploratory deep-sea drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

In his edict, Judge Feldman found that there is no legal basis for Obama’s moratorium, stating that “the Report” on which the moratorium was based, “makes no effort to explicitly justify the moratorium: it does not discuss any irreparable harm that would warrant a suspension of operations, it does not explain how long it would take to implement the recommended safety measures.”

Judge Feldman also indicates that the Administration’s very own report which forms the basis for the six-month moratorium, included experts who do not agree with Obama’s suspension of drilling:

“Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness,” Feldman points out in his decision, “the Summary also states that ‘the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.’ As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a ‘misrepresentation.’”

Feldman continues “It (the Report) was factually incorrect. Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they 'do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium' on floating drilling."

Mr. Obama takes issue with Judge Feldman’s ruling and will make an appeal to a higher court which also sits in Louisiana. If Feldman’s decision is sustained, expect Obama to take this to the U.S. Supreme Court where, I hope, a knife will finally be put into the heart of the administration’s wrong-headed moratorium.

"A Picture is worth a Thousand Words"

If that saying is true, as my Mom reminded me so many times, then how many words are hundreds of images worth? And, when those images mutate into the thousands and are projected daily into your family room TV, depicting the horror of war or of a national disaster, what are the consequences of those images upon our country’s leadership, specifically the President of the United States?

Just look at Lyndon Baines Johnson, the President who did not seek a second term because of the daily, gruesome portrayal of the Vietnam War, as grisly images of the fighting flowed into American homes at supper time, night after night. Or ask George W. Bush, who became prey to the same phenomenon, as relentless TV coverage underscored his administration’s failure of how to deal with Iraq once the initial victory was won, and after Saddam and his associates were disposed of.

Fair or not, Iraq, as well as the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Bush presidency were the reasons for Republicans losing control of Congress.

I call it The Katrina Syndrome – being expected to deal successfully with a major national disaster, but not knowing how: The very real American malaise associated with that syndrome may engulf the presidency of Barack Obama – fair or not – as he deals with the effects of the oil spill on the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

He knows that. It is why he has been unsuccessfully trying to put distance between himself and the people working to fix the disastrous oil spill that is soiling the Gulf coastlines and destroying the economy of Louisiana.

When the financial and real estate bubbles burst with full fury in the early days of the Obama Administration, the newly-minted president met with one corporate CEO after another and immersed himself and his administration in the search for solutions. Conservatives even say that he overreached in his initiatives to control manufacturing and financial industries.

Yet, we are nearing the end of the second month of the growing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mr. Obama has not once met with, spoken to, or beckoned a single British Petroleum executive to convene with him in the White House to engage in a team effort for a solution.

As the images of the oil spill disaster destroying the coastline and economy of Louisiana continue to dominate TV coverage, The Katrina Syndrome is building momentum and it is heading directly towards the Oval Office in Washington, D. C.

Counting Chickens too soon

When Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts defeated Democrat Martha Coakley, a presumed shoe-in for Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, there was much glee among the GOP that the newly-minted Senator Brown would provide the filibuster-proof incremental Senate vote required to prevent President Barack Obama from passing his health care bill.

Democrats were downcast and Republicans were jubilant.

In this blog, on January 19th (check the archives) I wrote: “Logically, this defeat should shock Mr. Obama into workable bi-partisanship. But don’t bet the farm on it: He and his chief advisors can be expected to hunker down even more now, and to railroad the legislation through the Congress.  Hope I’m wrong about that.”

It looks as though I may not have been far off the mark. Earlier today, President Barack Obama was on the stump in Ohio, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed to have the necessary votes required to pass the legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives this week.

Somebody is counting chickens too soon, and we won’t know who won until a few necks have been twisted and the meat is served up on the table for dinner.

As my Mom was always wont to remind me with one of her many aphorisms of advice, “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” (Cat lovers: Don’t be offended, it was an innocent time for me in my Bay State hometown way back when.)

Zuckerman Excoriates Obama

I must share with you, faithful readers, that I was stunned when I heard and read the criticism of Barack Obama by Mort Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News, and editor-in chief of US News & World Report.

Zuckerman is one of several very wealthy and influential Americans who publicly supported the candidacy of Barack Obama and his rise to the presidency of this country. But Mr. Zuckerman has since articulated a reversal of position, primarily due to the Obama administration’s bungling of the priority and effectiveness of its policy initiatives.

I, your blogger of modest means, am one of many who did not support Mr. Obama from the very onset of his campaign.

Nevertheless, while disagreeing, I respected the view of those who advanced logical reasons for Obama’s candidacy (excluding, of course, the ones who seemed to have raised him to the status of deity – that is anything but logical).

In a radio interview yesterday, to which I tuned in on my way back home from laps at the JCC, Mr. Zuckerman verbally took the president to the woodshed, using phrases such as, “He has worn out his welcome . . . diminished his credibility. He is (now) more of a politician, less of a leader. He hasn’t focused on what is by far the greatest problem, the economy . . . . (he has spent) too much time on health care . . . (there is) too much debt in the long term." On it went.

That criticism is in character with several full length articles which Zuckerman wrote: One of them can be found at U.S. News & World Report entitled “The Incredible Deflation of Barack Obama.”

Mort Zuckerman is (as certainly am I) very dissatisfied with Obama’s performance. In his column, he writes of Obama, “His promiscuity on TV has made him seem as if he is still a candidate instead of president and commander-in-chief.” Powerful words indeed, and Zuckerman has more where those came from.

“Oh, When Will They Ever Learn?”*

Which aspect of the terms, “enemy combatant” and “military tribunals” do the President and Attorney General Eric Holder not comprehend?

After virtually every high-level elected official in New York City and the State of New York rejected the Obama Administration’s plan to hold the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his 9/11 co-conspirators in Lower Manhattan, the White House is now looking to entice some other U.S. jurisdiction into providing a venue.

The Beltway Boys just keep trying to shovel money into the hands of anybody willing to stick out their hands. You’d think that Obama’s advisors would know better, especially after the broken healthcare bill went south, despite massive multi-million dollar legislative bribes to Louisiana and Nebraska, arranged through deals with Senators Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson.

But, no. Now the mayor of upstate Newburg, New York is being tempted to accept the $200 million offer of the Obama Administration: That money will go to any U.S. city that agrees to take the KSM trial. (Newburg, with a population of approximately 29,000, is only 60 miles north of New York City.)

It must be the human condition: Dirty money looks very clean when washed by the political machine.

So, the men and women of the Obama Administration are now walking the streets of the U.S. with a $200 million bag of silver: They are prepared to hand it over to any city that wants it – conditionally, of course.

Is there really a U.S. community willing to risk the safety of its residents by taking that bag? I hope not.


*Post title from the lyrics of Pete Seeger, “Where have all the flowers gone?”

Plouffe Goes Plop

If last night’s speech was to be the beginning of the winning strategy that would accompany the return of Barack Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe into the inner circle of advisors, that beginning fizzled before it started.

How in the world can the President possibly deliver on everything that he proposed last night? Perhaps he could start by focusing on the single outcome that I think we all want: Getting the economy back on track first.

Yesterday, that’s what he said he would do. But that only happened because his super-majority was blown to bits with the election of Senator-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts, as well as the mounting threat of further casualties feared by Obama in the November mid-term Congressional contests – that’s why Plouffe is back.

Soon, it will be a return to the same old Washington power game. In his speech, Mr. Obama addressed his Democrats, “We still have the largest majority in decades, and people expect us to solve problems, not run to the hills.” To Republicans, he said, “The responsibility is now yours as well.”

Democrats aren’t running for the hills; they are eyeing November and running for re-election already. Republicans always had the responsibility, but Obama, Reid and Pelosi have been hitting them over the head with the sledge of a super-majority.

Obama’s habit of thinking and speaking of himself in the third person as a Washington outsider is not a good sign. He has been in office a year now, sitting in the seat of the highest position in the land. He is Washington.

Looking Beyond Obama

Tonight, President Barack Obama will go before TV cameras and will deliver his first substantial report to the nation. He should stay home and go to bed. Here is more of what I think:

Despite Obama’s presence in the White House, spring will come. Yes it will. In several months, despite all of his misbegotten and self-absorbed approaches to governance, we will be able to go out into the warmth of the spring sunshine and see nature awaken from its winter slumber.

We will be able, once more, to watch the buds bloom; to coax our gardens into fresh growth; to make do with what we have – that which has not yet been taken away from us by the mismanagement of the boys and girls inside the Beltway. Yes, we can.

And there – in that eternal yearning for a spring that always comes – is where we will find the genuine hope and change that we can truly believe in.

Such a Fuss!

His victory made him the 41st vote for Republicans in the U.S. Senate. Still, I am bemused by all the attention being heaped upon Senator-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts and the unexpectedly glowing characterization of the Bay State by talking heads, writers, and bloggers of all stripes. It’s as though someone had just discovered a 51st state tucked away in the northeast.

Having been born 26 miles northwest of Boston; having roamed the Bay State and its environs for nigh on to four decades, I think that I know a little about Massachusetts, its people and the region. Trust me: It’s the same U.S. Commonwealth that it was before Scott Brown was elected – no better, no worse.

Massachusetts, a Source of Firsts: I won’t go through a list. But I will point out that long before Barack Obama began to remind Americans so often of how he is the first this and the first that, Massachusetts residents once chose Edward Brooke as the first modern African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate way back in 1967. I was proud of Brooke back then; yet I don’t recall Bay Staters making such a ruckus over it. Voters thought him qualified, put him in office, and that was that: Get to work.

Getting down to work on their behalf is no more, no less what Bay State residents expect from Scott Brown. He entered the race as an underdog, had the platform that voters wanted, worked his butt off campaigning, and pulled the rug out from under Martha Coakley, a lifelong Bay State resident fully backed by the Kennedys, but who simply did not keep her ears to the ground, and who forgot to campaign.

The Kennedy Factor. The mystique, charm, negotiation skills, effectiveness, political street-smarts, family tradition and tragedy associated with Ted Kennedy – love him or hate him – constituted the psyche of a political giant. Personal psyches, as Martha Coakley and the remaining Kennedys discovered, cannot be duplicated and are not transferable.

That is why Scott Brown is heading for Washington and Martha Coakley is not.

Note:  Photo of Edward Brooke, Courtesy/San Francisco Chronicle