Weiner Response + Gates & Service

My friend Mike Moldeven found my last posting on Anthony Weiner especially interesting and has written a cogent response. Here is his take on poor Anthony Weiner and the media that feeds on human frailties. After that Mike presents excerps from a News Hour interview with Robert Gates and hilights his belief in all americans contributing service to our country. Enjoy


'About Weiner's public embarrassment over the nastiness of his situation I felt the same as you might have. As with most males, I am not and never was an angel, but, again, as with men collectively and/or generally, we guys get to feeling somewhat negative trying to avoid, reject or rub off the smear of gender association with some schmuck that can't keep show-and-tell away from profit motivated-candid-camera-snapshot-photographers and -commentators.

At my age (94) I still have strong recollections of Minsky's 1930s 42d Street Burlesques and similar NY dives 'in action.' So, the hell with the Weenees a la Weiner and the yelping media (paper and electronic) columnists that use scandal-in-print/via TV to diminish-and-destroy. Your blog (Will) presented multiple views of a human's character. To me that was 'context' for the human dilemma: the fair-minded conscientious effort to ask oneself: what am I doing?'

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Jim Lehrer's Last Interview with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
Posted by Meyer Moldeven on June 25, 2011 at 6:30pm
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This posting reflects my thoughts after viewing the PBS NewsHour program of a few days ago in which Jim Lehrer formally interviewed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for the last official time. One point in their conversation was of special interest to me because Gates' expressed his feelings on 'citizen' involvement taking on responsibilities and tasks like I did along with my many colleagues for over 35 years as a government employee.

From the transcript:
JIM LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, you spoke a year or so ago at Duke University, where you talked about the fact that for most Americans, our wars, America's wars, have become an abstraction because so few of Americans and their families are directly involved. Is that hurting us as a country, do you think?
ROBERT GATES: Well, I think that it makes most Americans, the 99 percent of Americans who are not serving unaware of the strains and the stresses on our military families. And so what I've been trying to do and what Mrs. Biden and Mrs. Obama and the chairman and his wife - all these folks, are trying to do is to try and get that other 99 percent to - they all say they support the troops, but it's not just enough to say it. Go out and find one of them and give them a job. If they need some repairs on their house, do that. Mow the grass. Find some action you can take as a citizen who appreciates our military to help those families and particularly the families of those who are deployed. Every town in America has somebody from the National Guard who's probably deployed. So there's somebody out there that they can help. And actions always speak louder than words.
JIM LEHRER: So you're not suggesting some kind of mandatory national service or something like that that would force people to be more aware of war?
ROBERT GATES: No. Speaking personally...
JIM LEHRER: Yes.
ROBERT GATES: ...I have always that there ought to be some kind of mandatory national service, not necessarily in the military but to show everybody that freedom isn't free, that everybody has an obligation to the nation as a community. And so it could be military service, it could be teaching in rural or poor areas, it could be nursing, it could be any kind of service projects - the Peace Corps, whatever, but a period of service - working in our national parks or something - but a period of service that basically gives back to the nation that has given its citizens so much.
JIM LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, much has been written and said about your last four and a half years as secretary of defense. And a lot of people have been assessing your performance. What do you think of the way you've performed as secretary of state the last - secretary of defense the last four and half years?
ROBERT GATES: Well, I would say that, you know, there's been a lot that's happened over the last four and a half years. I will say that I think that the thing I'm proudest of is what I've been able to do for our troops, giving them these heavily armored vehicles, these Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles; giving them one-hour medevac or less in Afghanistan; more reconnaissance capabilities to prevent them from being attacked; trying to do whatever was necessary to help them accomplish their mission and come home safely.
JIM LEHRER: And you feel good about what you've done?
ROBERT GATES: I feel very good about that.
JIM LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, thank you and good luck.
ROBERT GATES: Thanks very much.