Kevin's Watch

Newsreel LXVIII
Step by step
All the happy Saints go marching in
And if a Saint step out of line
He'll have to start again

MISJUDGEMENTS MARRED US PLANS FOR IRAQI PEACE FORCE
As chaos swept Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, the Pentagon began its effort to rebuild the Iraqi police with a mere dozen advisers. Overmatched from the start, one was sent to train a 4,000-officer unit to guard power plants and other utilities. A second to advise 500 commanders in Baghdad. Another to organize a border patrol for the entire country.
Three years later, the police are a battered and dysfunctional force that has helped bring Iraq to the brink

Cause Jacob's golden ladder
Gets slippery at the top
And many a happy-go-lucky saint
Has made that long long drop

FOR TINY SCREENS, SOME BIG DREAMS
What Do People Want On Their Cellphones?

In a nondescript office park, hard by a freeway and other markers of suburbia like Circuit City and Trader Joe's, a band of creative souls is working on another staple of the American experience: new forms of entertainment for people to fill the few remaining gaps in their media-over saturated

If I'm late don't wait
Go on without me
I may tarry awhile
Cause I need to know
Before I go
How come the Devil smiles

the gunshot wounds to his torso concealed by the crisp beige suit he had recently worn to a high school speech team competition at Harvard University. The following day, mourners said goodbye to his best friend, Hassan Ferguson, 16, who was killed alongside Bobby Fischer and Gerry Kasparov, with so much confidence in their intuitive grasp of tactics, didn’t need to worry much about precautions. But numerous players, like Anatoly Karpov or Jan Timman, prefer

Free from care
Free from sin
The Saints are trooping in
The children play all around the throne
Innocent of sin

A SECOND CRIMINAL TRIAL BEGINS FOR FORMER ENRON CHIEF

A second trial began for Kenneth L. Lay with prosecutors accusing him of repeatedly lying to banks about how he would use $75 million

A trillion voices sing the name
The mortals may not know
And Heaven's walls are too high to hear
The trouble down below

Suzie Cries “Fix Albany”

Thomas Suozzi was born in Glen Cove son of Italian immigrants, his dad was a democratic officeholder back in the 40's,
went to church, went to church schools, he was a good Catholic boy, a good Democrat
where Morgan, Pratt, and Woolworth vacationed
was Mayor for 8 years.

In January 2002, Nassau was the worst run county in the USA.
Days before Suozzi was put in office
A 2.4 billion budget, 8500 employees to run it, practically bankrupted by poor administration,
Suozzi ran, he was a good Democrat, and there was a 2-to-1 ratio of Republicans to Democrats, the center of Republicanism in New York
Suozzi helped the Democratic takeover, got them in the majority by one, he was a good Catholic boy, a good Democrat. Got Dennis Dillon, Republican, anti-abortion district attorney in for 30 years,
Out.
All the county knew who Suozzi was.
He was a good Democrat.

Suozzi cut the budget, didn’t up taxes, worked out with labor a little better than most, he reformed, he changed, he fixed.
“No Wrong Door”, a task force that helped with Health Care, the environment, and helped the young and the old.
Discussed abortion, searched for consensus, stopped using it as a 1-or-the-other voting issue to win the polls.
And then Thomas Suozzi had an excellent idea. “Fix Albany”. Fix its “horrible, rotten, terrible broken system.”
Throw the incumbents out, he said, get the Democrat’s out of the Assembly, get the Republicans out of the Senate. “Fix Albany.”
Get rid of programs that spend too much money that the state doesn’t spend, that the counties have to.
In 2004, a precious two congressmen were ousted, but the machines kept running.
Mr. Suzie isn’t a good democrat. But he’s trying to Fix Albany.

"I have the experience as a government reformer that my opponent does not have.”
Mr. Suzie looked Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Democratic candidate for governor, in the eye, and wasn’t impressed with what he saw:
A “horrible, rotten, terrible broken system”, Silver blocking rape bills for trial lawyers,
“The real problems we face in this state are not being addressed by Eliot Spitzer”
went to speak in Theodore Roosevelt plaza.
Roosevelt, who bucked the New York Republican Machine, went on to be president
but Suzie, “Sixty percent of the people don’t know who I am.”, that’s Suzie.
Suzie isn’t a good democrat.
12% in the polls, “Kamikaze Suozzi”
(at least he’s explosive enough that his name’s right)
says “If I lose, I’ll finish my term as county executive, and that’s it for politics.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Kamikaze Suozzi” tries on the role of David, but even David
the soldiers on the battlefield saw him fighting,
“This is a competition, not a coronation”
Mr. Suzie isn’t a good Democrat.
"I'm not running against the Democrats, I'm running against the leaders of both parties that have failed to do the job, and how will things change if this is the same thing?"
Running against the 2-party system,
what is he thinking?
Suzie isn’t a good Democrat,
Suozzi is a good man, but he’s no La Folette, no Roosevelt, isn’t going to throw off the shackles of the parties in this day and age
“Sixty percent of the people don’t know who I am.”
“It’s up to you, New York, New York.”