(Opinion) The loud noise from the news ‘fronts’ is as full of confusion and competition for attention as a nearby dog kennel at feeding time.
We hear barking from the front lines that the Ukrainians are about to launch the long-heralded spring offensive to push back the Russians and regain previously lost territory and more.
It will all happen when the muddy roads and fields dry up providing armored vehicles some needed traction.
We hear of high-level infighting among the Soviet military command and fail to recognize – or report on – the not unusual strategic arguments of our own, and Ukrainian generals.
One piece of welcome good news: Ukrainian pilots are finally to be trained on America’s F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft that, after months of reluctance on the part of the US, will soon join the battlefield armaments and should make a significant difference. It’s the waiting that hurts.
But that’s not the only war.
From Capitol Hill and the White House, we hear the breathless rumble of breaking news, a dangerous battle of negotiation over the need to raise the US debt limit ceiling with the GOP threatening to let the sacrosanct limit be breached.
That would diminish America’s ability to pay its debts and its standing in the world’s financial markets, possibly bringing on a recession or worse, a full-scale depression.
Like the kennel before a meal is distributed, the noise is as wholly unnecessary as the debt ceiling crisis: the dogs know they’ll get fed and the political combatants know they’ll ultimately agree.
All too often the loudest barks get the most attention.
The GOP say that it will let the country lose its economic standing if the Democrats won’t make brutal spending cuts to the budget, these cuts to directly hurt America’s most in need citizens.
When Donald Trump was president, the debt ceiling was raised three times without any such grandstanding even though his tax cuts on the very rich were the principal reason for a giant increase in the nation’s debt.
The democrats argue persuasively that new taxes on the biggest earners, ultra-profitable corporations, and other savings, would cut the deficit without hurting those people who are most likely to suffer from the cuts to necessary federal programs. It’s like watching dogs chasing their tails.
Perhaps the noisiest barking comes from the combatants in the growing 2024 presidential nomination race.
Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis on the ‘perhaps tomorrow’ verge of announcing his candidacy, has for many months left Florida behind while travelling and speaking in important battleground states on a tour to nominally promote his book.
His official entry into the race will come ‘perhaps tomorrow’. Watching him as he tries gingerly to pick his way through the minefield laid by pollster-popular Donald Trump is rather engaging.
DeSantis, claims that the Florida he has governed should be the model for the nation’s states and his far-right agenda to free the nation of its problems by denuding school libraries of ‘problem’ titles among other things, should be embraced without question by everyone or charged with an offence.
The Governor’s claims and pronouncements do not always stand up to fact checking but he is hardly alone in this.
He sees the best way to the Republican presidential nomination is capturing those Trump voters, weary of Trump’s many scandals and potential criminal indictments.
He wants them and middle-of-the-road ‘true’ Americans, happy to see the end of woke lodged securely in Florida even if it means waging war with Mickey Mouse, the largest Florida employer and one of the greatest revenue generating machines in his State.
You have to wonder how news junkies like me would function if our daily fix were taken away.
Just think of the number of hours we might gain, not watching talking heads on Fox News telling us how the world is going to hell because “the communists want to control your every action”, or CNN’s wise panelists, each allowed 30 seconds to a minute to warn of unprecedented disasters ahead if conservatives leave everything to ‘the markets’.
It’s hard to find a better descriptor than “weirdness” for the random craziness of the media reporting of the Ukraine conflict, the debt limit battle, and the fight for supremacy of contenders to gain the GOP nomination.
Understanding the barking and yelping dogs and their fights for food and territorial imperatives provides certainty that we are not alone.