"First and foremost, standards at West Point are nonexistent. They exist on paper, but nowhere else."

"The senior administration at West Point inexplicably refuses to enforce West Point’s publicly touted high standards on cadets, and, having picked up on this, cadets refuse to enforce standards on each other. The Superintendent refuses to enforce admissions standards or the cadet Honor Code, the Dean refuses to enforce academic standards, and the Commandant refuses to enforce standards of conduct and discipline. The end result is a sort of malaise that pervades the entire institution. Nothing matters anymore. Cadets know this, and it has given rise to a level of cadet arrogance and entitlement the likes of which West Point has never seen in its history...."

From "Exclusive: Former West Point professor’s letter exposes corruption, cheating and failing standards [Full letter]" (American Military News).

"Jury orders blogger to pay $8.4 million to ex-Army colonel she accused of rape."

WaPo reports.

Col. David “Wil” Riggins, after a highly decorated Army career that included multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was on the verge of promotion to brigadier general in July 2013 when he... learned that a blogger in Washington state had just accused him of raping her, when both were cadets at West Point in 1986...

Riggins waived his right to an attorney and immediately gave a statement denying any sexual assault of the woman, Susan Shannon of Everett, Wash. Shannon also cooperated with the CID investigation, which could not “prove or disprove Ms. Shannon’s allegation she was raped,” the CID report concluded. But in the spring of 2014, with the armed forces facing heavy criticism for their handling of sexual assault cases, Secretary of the Army John McHugh recommended removing Riggins from the list for promotion to general. Riggins promptly retired.

Then, Riggins sued Shannon for defamation, claiming that every aspect of her rape claim on the West Point campus was “provably false,” and that she wrote two blog posts and a Facebook post “to intentionally derail [his] promotion” to brigadier general....

The jury sided with Riggins and awarded him $3.4 million in compensatory damages and — "to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again" (as one juror put it) — $5 million in punitive damages. The punitive damages will be reduced to $350,000, because that's the cap in Virginia, and the compensatory damages are expected to be reduced to $2 million. Shannon is, according to WaPo, a "stay at home mother of 3 teenagers." WaPo quotes Shannon saying "I feel like I'm a financial slave for the rest of my life."

Much more at the article, including details about what Shannon wrote in the blog post and how some things she said were "provably false," such as the assertion that West Point served "FREE beer" on the night in question. The top-rated comment is:

I am a liberal feminist. Please do not paint all of us with the brush. That said, I believe in evidence and justice for all. Women have historically been disbelieved when accusing men of rape. Nevertheless, I also know that some women use the accusation for vengeance. Based on the information in this article, I would vote with those jurors without hesitation. Denial of the truth of the Newtown tragedy speaks volumes about the woman's credibility.

ADDED: The comment I quoted refers to Shannon's blogging, that the Newtown shooting was “a planned event." She wrote: “I believe our GOVERNMENT shot those kids and teachers and used Adam Lanza and his family to pull it off.” (But that was not part of the evidence the jury heard.)

I live-blog my reading of the transcript of Trump's remarks at the CIA Headquarters.

I saw bits of this speech yesterday and heard it critiqued by freakily emotive commentators on CNN. I had to look away. I'm up for watching/reading the whole thing now. Here's the full transcript. I'm going to read it and live-blog my reactions.

Well. I want to thank everybody. Very, very special people. And it is true: this is my first stop.

I don't remember seeing other Presidents speak in this location. Clearly, Trump intends the very fact of his appearance here to convey meaning.

Officially. We’re not talking about the balls, and we’re not talking about even the speeches. Although, they did treat me nicely on that speech yesterday [laughter]. I always call them “the dishonest media”, but they treated me nicely.

Trump immediately distracted himself. This seems almost like the way many speakers tell a joke or anecdote before getting to the real topic. Trump is warming himself up — and drawing the crowd in collusively — by voicing what is always between the lines: The press won't be fair to him. The press is listening to this speech, and hearing the challenge: I don't think you can be fair. And I don't just want fairness. I want niceness. If you won't give me good press, I'm going to push the dishonest media meme.

He gets into and then out of his sidetrack quickly. Perhaps it's a device to get us to lock into attention. He's the one that does distractions for you, so your mind doesn't wander. If you wander, you'll get confused. And if you do get confused, you might blame him. That's what his opponents do. His digressions drive them mad. He's accused of serving a "word salad" and of lacking any attention span. But he's keeping track. He cuts in a side issue and jumps back to continue where he left off:

But, I want to say that there is nobody that feels stronger about the Intelligence Community and the CIA than Donald Trump. [applause]. There’s Nobody. Nobody. And the wall behind me is very very special. We’ve been touring for quite a while. And I’ll tell you what: twenty … nine? I can’t believe it.. No. Twenty eight. We’ve got to reduce it. That’s amazing. 

Yikes! He got back to the topic only to digress again — and it sounds really incoherent. I think the 29/28 may refer to the number of months he's been touring. 

And we really appreciate it what you've done in terms of showing us something very special. And your whole group. These are really special, amazing people. Very, very few people could do the job you people do. And I want to just let you know: I am so behind you. 

That's the message, the message already delivered by the choice of location, repeated in a few simple words. And then he repeats the verbal message, with a tinge of criticism to his predecessor:

And I know, maybe sometimes, you haven’t gotten the backing that you’ve wanted. 

And he repeats it again as a self-effacing joke:

And you’re going to get so much backing.  Maybe you’re going to say “please don’t give us so much backing”. [laughter] “Mr President, please, we don’t need that much backing”.

Returning to seriousness, he repeats it again:

But you’re going to have that. And I think everybody in this room knows it.

He's now done all that he showed up to do, I believe, and has maxed out the repetitions of the message. He supports the CIA. Noted.

Now what can he talk about?

You know, the military, and the law-enforcement generally speaking, -- but, all of it -- but the military, gave us tremendous percentages of votes. 

Oh, why did I even have to ask?! His go-to conversational topic is his great, great victory in the election:

We were unbelievably successful in the election with getting the vote of the military and probably almost everybody in this room voted for me, but I will not ask you to raise your hands if you did. [laughter] But I would guarantee a big portion. Because we’re all on the same wavelength, folks. We’re all on the same wavelength. [applause] All right? [pointing to the crowd] He knows. Took Brian about 30 seconds to figure that one out, right? Because we know. We’re on the same wavelength.

That's not really the right material for the location, and I think he knows it. He's scanning the mental files for something appropriate to say, something Trumpropriate.

We’re going to do great things. We’re going to do great things. 

Say it twice!

We’ve been fighting these wars for longer than any wars we’ve ever fought. We have not used the real abilities that we have. We’ve been restrained.

Aha:

We have to get rid of ISIS. We have to get rid of ISIS. 

Say it twice!

We have no choice. [applause]

The go-to argument that is no argument.

Radical Islamic terrorism - and I said it yesterday - has to be eradicated. 

He loves to say the phrase that Barack Obama would not say. He loves to say it and then stop and look at his having said it and comment that he has said it.

Just off the face of the Earth. This is evil. This is evil.

Say it twice!

And you know, I can understand the other side. We can all understand the other side. 

Say it twice! You know, this claim to understand other perspectives — or at least one other perspective — is out of whack with reliance on the argument-that-is-not-an-argument we have no choice.

There can be wars between countries. There can be wars. You can understand what happened. This is something nobody could even understand. 

Radical divergence from the say-it-twice rule of Trump rhetoric: Say it and then say exactly the opposite with equal conviction as if you haven't contradicted yourself.

But you know me. I am almost always eager to attempt a sympathetic reading to get some perspective on something that sounds so wrong. Here's me, doing that: Trump seems to have meant that with some wars, both sides have reasons to fight, and it's complicated figuring out what America ought to do, but radical Islamic terrorism is simply plain evil, so there's nothing to understand: Just eradicate what is plainly evil.

This is a level of evil that we haven’t seen. You’re going to go to it, and you’re going to do a phenomenal job. But we’re going to end it. It’s time. It’s time right now to end it.

The CIA has a job to do. But is "end it" really their job? Isn't Trump misunderstanding what they do? Or is he speaking so simply that it doesn't feel enough like an offer of understanding to warrant the label "misunderstanding"?

He finds a new topic in his mental file: The new CIA director:

You have somebody coming on who is extraordinary. 

And he's immediately drifting into other territory:

You know for the different positions, of secretary of this and secretary of that and all of these great positions, I’d see five, six, seven, eight people. And we had a great transition. We had an amazing team of talent.

Great, great, amazing. 

And by the way, General Flynn is right over here. Put up your hand, Mike. What a good guy [applause]

Compliments. Compliments. Everybody loves compliments. Let's see, who else can I compliment?

And Reince, and my whole group. Reince. You know Reince? They don’t care about Reince. 

He knows this isn't a good topic! Why is he telling the CIA about Reince Preibus? They don’t care about Reince. Ah, what the hell? It's a thing to talk about and he hasn't talked long enough yet.

He’s like, this political guy that turned out to be a superstar, right? We don’t have to talk about Reince. But, we did. We had just such a tremendous, tremendous success. So when I’m interviewing all of these candidates that Reince and his whole group is putting in front, it went very, very quickly, and in this case went so quickly. Because I would see six or seven or eight for secretary of agriculture, who we just named the other day. 

Suddenly, it's not about Reince anymore. It's about agriculture. He's telling the CIA about the Secretary of Agriculture!

Sunny [sic] Perdue. Former Governor of Georgia. Fantastic guy. But I’d see six, seven, eight people for a certain position. Everybody wanted it.

It's like he's talking in his sleep, babbling impressionistic memories of the last few weeks. Maybe this will get to why Flynn Pompeo* is great. Hang on.

But I met Mike Pompeo, and he was the only guy I met. I didn’t want to meet anybody else. I said “cancel everybody else”. Cancel. Now he was approved, essentially. But they’re doing a little political games with me. 

"They" are the Democrats in the Senate, I assume. But this is what I mean about babbling. There's a positive side to this: He gives us the feeling that we are now inside his head, seeing his thoughts. But there's something almost insane about the assumption we know what the references are. Pronouns without antecedents? A disembodied "they" is playing games with him. He makes it so easy for his antagonists to cry: Paranoid!

You know, he was one of the three.

The three? The three what? I have to try to construct a thought that he thought that I was not privy too, despite the feeling of being inside his brain. 

Now, last night, as you know, General Mattis - fantastic guy - and General Kelly got approved [applause] And Mike Pompeo was supposed to be in that group; it was going to be the three of them. 

Okay. The three nominees the Senate was going to vote to confirm on Friday.

Can you imagine? All of these guys. People respect … they respect that military sense. All my political people? They’re not doing so well. The political people aren’t doing so well… 

See? It's like he's talking in his sleep! He's trying to say that the nominees with a military background are advancing in the confirmation process more quickly than the ones with a political background, such as Mike Pompeo.

... but you … We’re going to get them all through. But some will take a little bit longer than others.

He finally gets back to the CIA-appropriate material — Mike Flynn Pompeo*:

But Mike was literally -- I had a group of, what, we had nine different people? -- Now. I must say, I didn’t mind cancelling eight appointments. That wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

That is, there were 9 people set to interview for CIA director, and he interviewed the first one, and decided that's the guy. Tough luck to you other 8.

But I met him, and I said “he is so good”. Number one in his class at West Point. Now, I know a lot about West Point. I’m a person that very strongly believes in academics. 

Oh, no. Here it comes:

In fact, every time I say, I had an uncle who was a great professor at MIT for 35 years, who did a fantastic job in so many different ways academically. He was an academic genius.

Had to say that. Just had to say that. And then you know what comes next? He must add an assertion about his own genetic gift:

And then they say: “is Donald Trump an intellectual?” Trust me. I’m like a smart person....

He snaps out of the digression:

And I recognized immediately. So he was Number 1 at West Point. And he was also essentially number 1 at Harvard Law School. And then he decided to go into the military. And he ran for Congress. And everything he’s done has been a home run. People like him. But much more importantly to me, everybody respects him.

When I told Paul Ryan that I want to do this, I would say, he may be the only person that was not totally thrilled, right, Mike? Because he said “I don’t want to lose this guy."

You will be getting a total star. 

A star? And when you’re a star... you can do anything.

You going to be getting a total gem. He is a gem. 

Say it twice!

And I just …. [applause] You’ll see. You’ll see. And many of you know him anyway. But you’re going to see. And again: we have some great people going, but this one is something, going to be very special, because this is one of -- if I had to name the most important, this would certainly be, perhaps, you know, in certain ways, you could even say my most important. You do the job like everybody in this room is capable of doing. And the generals are wonderful and the fighting is wonderful. 

Wonderful wonderful.

But if you give them the right direction? Boy, does the fighting become easier. And boy do we lose so fewer lives, and win so … quickly.

I know he just means to compliment everyone and give respect to the lower-downs and the higher-ups. But this is scarily babbly when he's talking about human lives.

And that’s what we have to do. We have to start winning again.

A familiar line circled around to the front of the brain and flew out. Yeah, we need to win wars. But forget that, Trump wants to muse about when he was young...

You know what? When I was young, And when I was … of course, I feel young. 

And his digression provoked a digression. He suddenly doesn't want to talk about when he was young but how young he feels today:

I feel like I’m 30. 35. 39. [laughter]. Somebody said “are you young?” I said “I think I’m young."

Somebody said something, and then I said something and then....

You know, I was stopping when we were in the final month of that campaign. 

And now we're back at the original digression, the story of the campaign.

Four stops, five stops. Seven stops. Speeches -- speeches -- in front of twenty five, thirty thousand people. Fifteen thousand, nineteen thousand, from stop to stop.

Numbers numbers numbers. Say some numbers. And they add up to...

I feel young.

Back to the when I was young digression:

But when I was young -- and I think we’re all sort of young -- when I was young, we were always winning things in this country. We’d win with trade. We’d win with wars. At a certain age I remember hearing from one of my instructors “The United States has never lost a war.”

Oh, I remember hearing that live yesterday. I remember remembering that I always heard "The United States has never lost a war." And the other thing I remember remembering yesterday when Trump was remembering always hearing "The United States has never lost a war" is how important that perfect record was in getting us deeper and deeper into the hell of Vietnam. If Trump remembers that, he doesn't say it.

And then, after that, it’s like, we haven’t won anything. We don’t win anymore.

The campaign slogan cycles to the front of the brain again. And then another old idea:

The old expression: “to the victor belong the spoils” - you remember? You always used to say “keep the oil”. I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to go into Iraq. But I will tell you. When we were in, we got out wrong. And I always said: “In addition to that, keep the oil”.

Let's see what Mike thinks about that:

Now I said it for economic reasons, but if you think about, Mike, if we kept the oil we would probably wouldn’t have ISIS, because that’s where they made their money in the first place. So we should have kept the oil. But okay. [laughter] Maybe we’ll have another chance. But the fact is: we should’ve kept the oil.

Mike doesn't get to engage on this interesting policy question, but maybe Trump and Flynn have talked about keeping the oil.

Trump gets back to his core message, suggesting he's bringing this speech in for a landing:

I believe that this group is going to be one of the most important groups in this country towards making us safe, towards making us winners again. Towards ending all of the problems -- we have so many problems that are interrelated that we don’t even think of, but interrelated -- to the kind of havoc and fear that this sick group of people has caused.

So I can only say that I am with you 1000%. 

Numbers. Fake numbers. Fake on their face. It's okay. Numbers are beautiful. Fantastic. I love numbers!

And the reason you’re my first stop is that as you know, I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth. [laughter, applause]

I'm having deja vu. 

And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the Intelligence Community. And I just want to let you know, the reason you’re the number 1 stop is exactly the opposite. Exactly. And they understand that too.

Ah, this connects 2 topics that seemed disconnected at the beginning of the speech. But he drops that to bring in another example of media dishonesty:

And I was explaining about the numbers. We did a thing yesterday...

A thing. The Inauguration!

... the speech, and everybody really liked the speech, you had to right? [applause] We had a massive field of people. You saw that. Packed. I get up this morning. I turn on one of the networks and they show an empty field. I say: “wait a minute. I made a speech. I looked out. The field was…. It looked like a million, a million and a half people.” They showed a field where there was practically nobody standing there. And they said “Donald Trump did not draw well”. And I said “well it was almost raining”. The rain should have scared them away. But God looked down and he said “we’re not going to let it rain on your speech”.

Now, he's switching to the subject of the rain, about which there is no dispute with the media and no possible connection to the CIA.

In fact, when I first started I said “oh no”. First line, I got hit by a couple of drops. And i said “oh, this is too bad, but we’ll go right through it”. But the truth is: that it stopped immediately. It was amazing. And then it became really sudden, and then I walked off and it poured right after I left - it poured.

At least he resisted additional speculation about God's expressing his opinion through precipitation.

But you know, we have something that’s amazing because, we had, it looked honestly, it looked like a million and a half people. Whatever it was. But it went all the way back to the Washington Monument. And I turn on, with my steak … and I get this network shows an empty field. And it said we drew 250,000 people.

With my steak?! Come on, Washington Post! He didn't suddenly inject the subject of what he was eating for dinner as he watched the news. He said: "And I turn on, and by mistake, I get this network and it shows an empty field."

Now that’s not bad. But it’s a lie. We had 250,000 people literally around, you know, the little bowl that we constructed. That was 250,000 people. The rest of the 20 block area all the way back to the Washington Monument was packed. So we caught them. And we caught them in a beauty. And I think they’re going to pay a big price.

And a lot of people think that right here he's getting caught in a beauty and he's going to have to pay a big price. But it's like those thousands of Muslims dancing on the rooftops of Jersey City. He doesn't have to pay a big price. He got a big reward. He doesn't have to stick to facts. He can waft stories and call other people liars. He's probably right that the others are lying (or somewhere on the continuum between truth and lies). And he knows he can win by rousing us all from the dream of truth. It's all fake news, so pick the story you like. And he only needs half of the people to like his storytelling to get all of the power.

They had another one yesterday which was interesting. In the Oval Office there’s a beautiful statue of Dr Martin Luther King. And I also happen to like Churchill.

Churchill digression:

Winston Churchill. I think most of us like Churchill. He doesn’t come from our country. But he had lot to do with it. He helped us. A real ally. And as you know, the Churchill statue was taken out. The bust. And as you probably also have read, the Prime Minister is coming over to our country very shortly, and they wanted to know whether or not I’d like it back. And I said “absolutely, but in the meantime we have a bust of Churchill”.

So a reporter for Time magazine. And I have been on their cover like 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all time record in the history of Time magazine. Like it Tom Brady is on the cover of Time magazine, it’s one time, because he won the Superbowl or something, right? [laughter]. I’ve been on for 15 times this year. I don’t think that’s a record, Mike, that they can ever be broken, do you agree with that? What do you think?

A digression in the middle of a digression.  Trump's face on Time. And I've heard he got it wrong that this was a record, but I don't really care anymore. It's just an idea. His face is on Time a lot.

Getting back to MLK:

But I will say that, he said something that was very interesting: that “Donald Trump took down the bust, the statue, of Dr Martin Luther King”. It was right there. But there was a cameraman that was in front of it.

So Zeke - Zeke - from Time magazine writes a story about how I took it down. But I would never do that, because I have great respect for Dr Martin Luther King. But this is how dishonest the media is: a big story. And the retraction was like -- was it a line? Or did they even bother putting it in?

The MLK statue story. Man, that's a long story. But it's a memorable chapter in The Story of How Truth Died.

So I only like to say that because I love honesty. I like honest reporting. 

Truth was dearly loved.

I will tell you the final time: although I will say it, when you let in your thousands of other people that had been trying to come in, because I am coming back. We may have to get you a larger room. [laughter, applause] We may have to get you a larger room. And maybe - maybe - it’ll be built by somebody that knows how to build and we won’t have columns [laughter] You understand that? We’d get rid of the columns.

He's talking about the CIA Headquarters and implying that he'd like to put on his construction hat and build them a better building — one where thousands can amass and columns do not obstruct their gaze upon the face that has launched a thousand TIME magazines.

I just wanted to really say that I love you. 

That's disarming. You forget all the abuse.

I respect you. There’s nobody that I respect more. You’re going to do a fantastic job. And we’re going to start winning again. And you’re going to be leading the charge. So thank you all very much. Thank you, beautiful. Thank you all very much. Have a good day. I’ll be back. I’ll be back. Thank you.

Goodbye. Thank you. Have a nice day.
____________________________

* I got confused about the 2 Mikes. I'm sure the CIA people in the room did not.

Donald Trump questions the single belt buckle theory and the pyramid theory.

On "Meet the Press" this morning, Donald Trump was asked about Ben Carson:

Well, I feel badly for Ben. I've gotten to like Ben. And it's a tough thing. I mean, he writes a book where he went after his mother, hit her on the head, or wanted to hit her on the head with a hammer. Hitting a friend in the face with a lock, with a padlock, hard in the face, stabbing somebody, only to be broken up by a belt buckle. Which, if you know about belt buckles, they turn and they twist. I don't think they're going to stop a knife with the force of a strong man. And when he writes that he has pathological disease in a book, now he obviously wrote this book prior to thinking about running for office, I assume. But he said he has pathological disease.... Well, if you have pathological disease, that's a problem. I mean, he wrote it. I didn't write it. But he's going to have to explain a lot of things away. The scholarship situation, the dinner with Westmoreland when Westmoreland wasn't there. And the pyramids. You know, a pyramid is a solid structure, essentially. Other than a little area for the pharaoh. And you don't put grain in a pyramid because it's all solid.

He used the same material on "Face the Nation":

When you are talking about hitting your mother over the head with a hammer -- and I'm sure you never said that. And I never said that or thought that. And hitting a friend in the face with a lock, with a padlock, and stabbing somebody, and, you know, lots of -- and saying you have psycho -- when you have pathological disease, which he said. And now the whole thing comes out about West Point, where he was talking about scholarships at West Point. And, you know, I have been -- I know a lot about West Point. West Point doesn't do the scholarship thing. So, a lot of -- a lot of questions are being raised. And the pyramid situation is a little bit different, because, frankly, if you know anything about the pyramids, you know they are pretty solid structures. They don't have -- they didn't have steel, where they would span it and they would create a big vacuum underneath. Those are solid structures. So, you're talking about storing grain in the pyramids. Well, they have very little space. They have space for small rooms, where the pharaohs had their coffins and where the pharaohs were buried, essentially. So, a lot of -- a lot of things are going on. And I don't know. I just don't know what to think. I hope it -- I hope it works out fine for Ben. I just don't know what to think....

Pressed by the moderator to admit this material is "quite secondary":

Well, I think when you say that you stabbed someone, and was saved by a belt buckle -- and that's pretty unlikely, because a belt buckle will turn. You know, a belt buckle is not going to stop a knife. The belt buckle itself will turn. And when you say you hit your mother over the head with a hammer, or tried to, those are pretty -- and when you write in book that you have pathological disease, pathological disease is not cured. And, you know, you had dinner with Westmoreland -- now, I hear Westmoreland may not have been in the area where the dinner took place at that time, according to his schedule. So, I don't know about that. And maybe it's right and maybe it's wrong, but those are pretty tough charges. And they were written by him himself. The pathological stuff was written. That's very serious, pathological disease.

West Point pillow fight ends with 24 concussions, a broken leg, and dislocated shoulders.

"Colonel Kasker said the annual fight is organized by first-year students as a way to build camaraderie after the summer program that prepares them for the rigors of plebe year."

Photos posted later on Twitter show plebes, as freshmen are called, with bloody faces and bloody pillows, and at least one person being loaded into an ambulance.

“My plebe was knocked unconscious and immediately began fighting when he came to,” an unnamed upperclassman, who was apparently observing from the sidelines, wrote on the social media forum Yik Yak. “I was so proud I could cry.”

ADDED: "But this year the fight on the West Point, N.Y., campus turned bloody as some cadets swung pillowcases packed with hard objects, thought to be helmets...."

That made me think of the old Freakonomics episode, "The Dangers of Safety":

Modern [football] helmets do a good job of preventing skull fractures and on-field deaths: that’s why those numbers are way down historically. But getting lots of concussions isn’t very healthy either. To prevent them, Dr. Cantu could make a more cushioned helmet — but then you might be more worried about skull fractures again. And then there’s this problem: if you did give football players a more heavily cushioned helmet, what are they going to do with it? A lot of people think the biggest problem in the game today is that players use their helmets not so much as protection … but as a weapon.

Bergdahl as Obama's worst PR nightmare.

1. I'm surprised, with all the scandals Obama has wriggled his way through and around all these years, that bringing Bergdahl back home has hurt him so badly. I think Obama and his people believed that the Rose Garden announcement of the soldier's homecoming would warm American hearts, cleverly distract us from the VA scandal, and count as a positive step toward his long-delayed goal of closing Guantanamo. Moderate Americans would celebrate (or at least not complain about) the soldier's return. And more leftish Americans would get some satisfaction from the progress on Guantanamo.

2. Obama had just — 3 days before — given a commencement speech at West Point that he must have believed would refocus our attention on his distinctive vision of America's role in the world. He stressed our obligation to follow "international norms and the rule of law," expressed pride in "winding down our war in Afghanistan," and recommitted to closing "Gitmo, because American values and legal traditions do not permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders." His people must have believed this dignified oration would set us up nicely to receive the Bergdahl announcement. The speech got an "icy" reception, but the plan to follow up with the Rose Garden announcement remained in place.

3. Obama and his people knew there would be criticism about his violation of the statute that purports to require him to inform Congress in advance of releasing any detainees, but, as I blogged on June 1st, I think they imagined themselves winning this PR spat:

Go ahead. He's daring you. Perhaps part of his motivation for the prisoner trade was a predicted political boost as the President's opponents are distracted into seeming to complain about the return of a hero and tripping all over themselves as they posture about impeachment.

4. The first comment on my post jumped on my use of the word "hero." The Drill SGT said: "There are a lot of questions about how and where he was captured. None of them make him out a hero." I resisted this new material: "I used the word 'hero' precisely to highlight the nature of the response to the complaints, and anything disparaging to this man, like what you're saying, will redound against Obama's opponents." When I read that now, I think: That's exactly how Obama and his people fooled themselves into thinking they'd win this PR game.

5.  Obama's friends in the press worked the angle I had predicted. Joan Walsh over at Salon had a piece titled: "The right’s unhinged Bergdahl hypocrisy: The ultimate way to savage ObamaShould accused deserters face trial by Bill Kristol before being rescued? Understanding the latest wingnut hysteria." It began: "Of course Republicans are going to compare the prisoner swap that won the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to Benghazi. They both start with B." Actually, I think a lot of us, at that point, had not quite absorbed the name "Bergdahl" and were mentally filing it under that name that looks like "Benghazi." That was a random tough break for Obama — making it more likely that we'll hypothesize screwups and coverups — but it was a deliberate choice to send Susan Rice — who famously propagandized about Benghazi on the Sunday shows — onto a Sunday show to do the propaganda on Bergdahl. George Stephanopoulos gave her a supportive forum.

6. CNN's Jake Tapper broke ranks with the liberal media: "Fellow soldiers call Bowe Bergdahl a deserter, not a hero." And consider that that it was CNN's Jim Clancy who uttered the words "pretty icy" about West Point's reaction to Obama's commencement speech. CNN has problems of its own, and wouldn't it be funny if it could solve them by eschewing the role of PR outlet for Obama and doing some tough journalism? I suspect the ratings (and web traffic) are showing that this "pretty icy"/"deserter, not a hero" material is exactly what CNN desperately needs for its own survival. If so, what a tipping point.

7. The Rose Garden performance gets worse and worse in retrospect as we look closely at a man who was supposed to be scenery for the President: Bergdahl's father. Did Obama's people just assume the parents would be humble, grateful ordinary Americans? Should we give Obama some credit for not locking down the PR?

8. What Joan Walsh called "the latest wingnut hysteria" is seeping out to Democrats. Yesterday, The Weekly Standard found that "Senate Democrats Go AWOL: They had Obama's back on the Bergdahl/Taliban trade. Now they're walking away." Lots of Senators were queried, and only Harry Reid took Obama's side. Everybody else seemed to need to learn more about it before they could express an opinion.

9. This morning, Obama's PR nightmare includes Hillary Clinton attempting to extract herself:  "While still secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was skeptical of early plans to trade five Guantanamo prisoners for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, former officials involved in the process told CNN on Tuesday. Clinton pushed for a much tougher deal... Clinton did not trust the Haqqani network holding Bergdahl, they said, and she was wary that the trade would lead to peace with the Taliban."

10. I see that Talking Points Memo is still attempting the old "Obama's in trouble, we need to help" routine: "Conservatives Go From Zero To Impeachment In Record Time On Bergdahl." Whatever you might say about Obama, those Republicans are crazy.

Obama at West Point: a "philosophical speech,” not a “commander-in-chief speaking to his troops.”

"And you heard the reception. I mean, it was pretty icy."

ADDED: That quote, from a CNN commentator is getting a lot of play, especially the word "icy." The transcript won't tell us about the reception, but does let us check the "philosophical" characterization. This is a graduation speech, and one of the first things he says, citing his status as commander-in-chief, is:

To the entire class, let me reassure you in these final hours at West Point, as commander in chief, I hereby absolve all cadets who are on restriction for minor conduct offenses. (Laughter, applause.) Let me just say that nobody ever did that for me when I was in school....

Why is he seeking camaraderie with offenders? I wouldn't characterize that as "philosophical." It's more lamely trying to be cool. But it does get philosophical. Skipping way down, let me pull out this:

We cannot exempt ourselves from the rules that apply to everyone else. We can’t call on others to make commitments to combat climate change if a whole lot of our political leaders deny that it is taking place....

I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions. (Applause.)

And that’s why I will continue to push to close Gitmo, because American values and legal traditions do not permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders. (Applause.) That’s why we’re putting in place new restrictions on how America collects and uses intelligence, because we will have fewer partners and be less effective if a perception takes hold that we’re conducting surveillance against ordinary citizens. (Applause.) America does not simply stand for stability or the absence of conflict, no matter what the cost; we stand for the more lasting peace that can only come through opportunity and freedom for people everywhere -- which brings me to the fourth and final element of American leadership: our willingness to act on behalf of human dignity.

America’s support for democracy and human rights goes beyond idealism; it is a matter of national security. Democracies are our closest friends and are far less likely to go to war. Economies based on free and open markets perform better and become markets for our goods. Respect for human rights is an antidote to instability and the grievances that fuel violence and terror....

"We must deny al Qaeda a safe-haven. We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government."

"And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s Security Forces and government, so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.... [W]e will pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban’s momentum and increase Afghanistan’s capacity over the next 18 months...."

ADDED: I only got a chance to watch the last 15 minutes or so. (Office Christmas party.) But I'll say what I thought: He sounded oddly stern, like he was lecturing us. Annoyed at us. The words were meant to be inspirational but there was no lift... no lift of a driving dream. Is he tired of being Obama? Or was it the vibe in the room? I don't think those West Point folk liked him too much. He made some pauses that felt awkward in advance of grudging applause, and the response at the end was minimal. The camera searched among the faces and found only grim ones. No one glowed with the fire of Obama-love.

AND: "America – we are passing through a time of great trial." I wanted to feel that line, but the delivery was cold and perfunctory. I had to imagine Reagan saying it to understand what it was supposed to mean.

A writer admires a writer he identifies with.

Tom Carson has a deft essay on Bob Dylan's "Chronicles," in the NYT Book Review. Carson writes elaborate start-and-stop sentences full of interesting ideas. Here are a few that jumped out at me:

Yet the man only had to grow an emaciated ant colony under his nose to get me regressing into speculation about his motives -- or, at any rate, thinking How strange instead of Wow, we're both geezers.

Even more gnomic and less rewarding was those liner notes' unreadable amplification in his ''novel'' -- ah, remember when the term ''novel'' conferred cachet? -- ''Tarantula,'' published in 1971 but written much earlier.

At once naive and wily, the diction summons up the hobbledehoy eagerness, skeptical wit and odd hardscrabble decorum of a half-remembered, half-concocted native idiom with such verve that you can scarcely tell the genuine colloquialisms from the ones he's just made up.

As self-serving as ''Volume One'' is, not to mention coy -- unless I seriously misremember his marital history, the nameless ''my wife'' of 1971 and her 1987 counterpart are two different people -- the sprays of language, cockeyed aphorisms and good anecdotes win out, with highlights ranging from Dylan's spilling the beans that his boyhood dream was to attend West Point to a charming description of the day he met -- and serenaded -- John Wayne in Hawaii, where the Duke was filming ''In Harm's Way.'

Dylan's "Chronicles": Chapter 2.

Continuing my reading of the new Dylan autobiography from yesterday.

Dylan describes the characters he met in New York and the books that he read in the well-stocked library in one of the places where he crashed in those early days. You sense the material is being gathered for songs like "Desolation Row," where arty New Yorkers mingle with historical and literary figures. He seems to learn to do the mingling from Chloe Kiel (pp. 26-27) who wore black fingernail polish and said wild things like "Dracula ruled the world and he's the son of Gutenberg."

He tells of growing up during and just after WWII. I cringe at the passage that clumps "Hitler, Churchill, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt" together and describes them in undifferentiated language. I write "Masters of War" in the margin. Yet at one point he pictured himself going to West Point: "I wanted to be a general with my own battalion." P. 41. His father said he lacked the connections to get in, and his uncle told him "A soldier is a housewife, a guinea pig. Go to work in the mines." P. 42. Later, he became very engrossed in studying the Civil War. Pp. 84-86.

His only childhood confidante was his grandmother, p. 42, a one-legged seamstress who had immigrated from Turkey, p. 93. She had darker skin than the rest of his family, and she smoked a pipe. P. 92.

Cliché that should have been edited out, p. 100: "March was coming in like a lion ..."
Musical artists he writes about admiringly:

• Roy Orbison. Pp. 32-33. "Next to Roy the [radio] playlist was strictly dullsville ... gutless and flabby."

• Johnny Rivers. Pp. 60-61. "Of all the versions of my recorded songs, the Johnny Rivers one was my favorite." Rivers, in his version of "Positively 4th Street," understood the attitude, Dylan writes. Immediately after reading this, I go to Amazon and find and order "Rewind/Realization." The double album not only has "Positively 4th Street," it begins with "The Tracks of My Tears," the song that inspired Dylan to call Smokey Robinson "the greatest American living poet."

• Bobby Vee. Pp. 79-81. "I'd always thought of him as a brother."

• Hank Williams. Pp. 95-96. "When I hear Hank sing, all movement ceases. The slightest whisper seems a sacrilege." He tried to follow rules for songwriting that he perceived in Williams's songs.

An author he loved: Balzac! P. 46:

You can learn a lot from Mr. B. It's funny to have him as a companion. He wears a monk's robe and drinks endless cups of coffee. Too much sleep clogs up his mind. One of his teeth falls out, and he says, "What does this mean?" He questions everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders if fire is a good sign. Balzac is hilarious.

He makes Balzac sound like a guy in a Dylan song: "And you say, 'What does this mean?'"

Dylan repeatedly expresses the instinctive feeling he had that music was about to change and that he knew where to take it:

The On the Road, Howl and Gasoline street ideologies that were signaling a new type of human existence weren't there [on the radio]. P. 34.

I just thought mainstream culture was lame as hell and a big trick. P. 35.

I knew what I was doing ... and wasn't going to take a step back or retreat for anybody. P. 67.

I had a vivid idea of where everything was. The future was nothing to worry about. It was awfully close. P. 104.