Soccer Dad

You read it in the blogs first

News is an ongoing process. There are lots of stories to tell, many details to illuminate.

Every once in a while story comes to the surface, but someone had previously observed a point relevant to the story before it made it to the public eye.

LGF notes that after disappointing Hamas and Fatah, Sen. Obama has now backtracked on his "Jerusalem undivided" statement to AIPAC.

But a campaign adviser clarified Thursday that Obama believes “Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties” as part of “an agreement that they both can live with.”

You might guess that the "campaign adviser" was Daniel Kurtzer. Maybe it was; maybe it wasn't. But Daled Amos noted that David Hazony pointed out that

...it was only three weeks ago that Daniel Kurtzer, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Obama’s adviser on middle east policy, announced that “it will be impossible to make progress on serious peace talks without putting the future of Jerusalem on the table.” Let’s just say that Obama’s thoughts on Jerusalem are still in their fluid stage.

Sen. Obama's backtrack shows that the skepticism was warranted.

Today there was news that two top officials of the Air Force were fired. The NYT reports:

The Air Force’s senior civilian official and its highest-ranking general were ousted by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Thursday following an official inquiry into the mishandling of nuclear weapons and components, an episode that Mr. Gates called an indication of systemic problems in the Air Force.

The Air Force secretary, Michael W. Wynne, and the service’s chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, were forced to resign after the inquiry found that the latest incident reflected “a pattern of poor performance” in securing sensitive military components, Mr. Gates said at a Pentagon briefing.

So deep and serious are the problems, Mr. Gates said, that he has asked a former defense secretary, James R. Schlesinger, to head “a senior-level task force” to recommend improvements in the safekeeping of weapons, delivery vehicles and other sensitive items.

(via memeorandum)

A few weeks ago, Seraphic Secret ran a guest post by an Air Force officer, Officer Rot in the Unites States Air Force, in which the guest poster lamented:

The Air Force needs a George C. Marshall. Oh, do they need a Marshall. Someone who gets it. Someone who has the stones to tank a generation of officers who just aren't helping. Someone who understands how to communicate the service's needs, what it can bring to the fight—the Air Force's abilities are unmatched—and someone who will rediscover the service's purpose: to support the infantry.

Given the description of "officer rot," I'm not sure that Gates's actions will necessarily solve the problems described. Still he identified a problem of the Air Force culture just a few weeks before it became news.

Reading blogs: it puts you ahead of the news curve.