Uphill Battles: The Dodgers, Tan Nguyen, and Nouri Al-Maliki's Congressional Strait Jacket

Sometimes it's hard to look at the developments of the world and not get depressed. The Dodgers have lost 11 of their 12 games since emerging from the All-Star break, falling into sole possession of last place in the NL West, and 5.5 games behind the Division-leading San Diego Padres. That's not an insurmountable lead to overcome, but it doesn't look good for the Dodgers, even after trading away disgruntled pitcher Odalis Perez and two minor league pitchers (Blake Johnson and Julio Pimentel) to the Kansas City Royals for Elmer Dessens. I still think they're going to win the Division-- and getting speedster Jason Repko back from the DL is only going to help in that capacity-- but it's going to be an uphill battle and a tough challenge for the Blue Crew.

Another uphill battle this season was recently described by former Marine helicopter pilot and Orange County entrepreneur Quang Pham, author of A Sense of Duty, who has recently joined the OC Blog's team of quality bloggers. In "Switching Sides: Tan Nguyen for Congress Updates," Quang notes the problems that Loretta Sanchez's latest challenger Tan Nguyen faces in gaining the endorsements and raising the funds to overcome the incumbent's tremendous campaign warchest. It doesn't look good: Tan loaned $349,000 to his campaign, but has barely $13,000 cash on hand and his campaign doesn't report another fundraiser until early October; by comparison, Loretta has $960,705 cash on hand and continues to pull in money from PACs, special interest groups, and liberals across the country. Tan's chances look more like the Royals' than the Dodgers' chances of making the post-season, and that's a real uphill battle.

Meanwhile, the Arab American Institute, which has been flooding my inbox with email since the Israeli military action in Lebanon, has launched a heavy criticism of Congressional Democrats in their latest press release. The AAI tends to be critical of the Bush Administration (perhaps because its President, James Zogby, is a former Clinton staffer... but then again, who isn't critical of the Administration these days?)-- most recently with a demand that the President seek an immediate ceasefire between the hostile parties. At the moment, however, the AAI is criticizing the likes of Senators Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and Charles Schumer, and House Democrat Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emmanuel for recently demanding (at threat of boycott) that the House remove Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki from addressing their body. Al-Maliki's transgression? Apparently he called for a ceasefire and criticized Israeli aggression. According to the AAI, the height of this criticism came in the form of:

“Before [al-Maliki] speaks before Congress and the American people, we ask him which side is he on in the war on terror,” Schumer is quoted as saying.

We saw a similar opposition, albeit from the right-wing, manifest itself against al-Maliki's alleged reconciliation proposal-- one that might have provided amnesty to those who attacked American servicemembers and could even have armed the Iraqi insurgents to fight against the foreign jihadists. To be al-Maliki, of course, is not an easy path to navigate: Democrats and Republicans alike want the leader of the Iraqi people to represent the interests of Democrats and Republicans first, and the interests of his people second. While this is likely to play well across television sets from Los Angeles to New York City, it will do nothing to enable to legitimate Iraqi government to consolidate its authority over the people of Iraq. And that's part of the problem. Al-Maliki cannot lead his people with an American agenda, and more than anything, that means we're going to have to understand that he will deviate from our desired line from time to time. Having the latitude to criticize another country (even a favorite scapegoat such as Israel) or to pursue a war reconciliation policy that would be similar to what President Lincoln imposed on the former Confederacy is something that we're going to need our Congressional leaders-- on both sides of the aisle-- to understand and stay out of the way. Otherwise, a-Maliki's chances are going to be closer to Tan and the Royals than to the Dodgers this season... And it will be hard enough just being the Dodgers.