The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Kuhl/Massa contest was featured on in a lengthy piece tonight's PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer.  Here's what's news (to me at least) in the coverage:

• Kuhl's rejoinder to Massa's partition strategy on Iraq.  He spoke to an Iraqi interior ministry official there, and distilled his experience as follows:

He said that there's no way that they could do that from a practical standpoint. It just wouldn't work out. And so it's just not even an option to them.

And they are working toward a unified national government with inclusion of all the various sectarian groups. So I don't see any proposals at this point. I mean, that would just lead to people fighting over what's the territory they get, and on, and on, and on. I see that as totally disruptive and not a responsible plan.

• Kuhl's re-phrasing of the "surrender" argument on the war:

I don't see us sending up the white flag, and walking away, and encouraging, you know, these radical Muslims, jihadists to actually come in and have a safe haven for all of them, take over a country that they then can launch attacks not only on us, but some of our other allies who are there, too.

• Intimations of a "whisper campaign" about Massa's military service.  The basis of this campaign is the idea that Massa should have achieved a higher rank than Commander after 24 years of service.  A Kuhl supporter was quoted as follows:

DR. ANTHONY SANTOMAURO, Kuhl Supporter: What position did he have in Navy?

RAY SUAREZ [News Hour Reporter]: He retired as a commander.

DR. ANTHONY SANTOMAURO: How many years was he in?

RAY SUAREZ: Twenty four, but I'm not sure all of that was active duty.

DR. ANTHONY SANTOMAURO: Twenty four years in the Navy, what would you expect to get rank to?

RAY SUAREZ: Well, they say he would have made captain, except he took a medical -- he retired...

DR. ANTHONY SANTOMAURO: I'll leave it at that. I think you see where I'm coming from.

Commander is the Naval equivalent of Lt. Colonel.  Of course, what Ray Suarez was trying to say is that Massa would have probably retired as a Captain (the naval equivalent of full Colonel), except that he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and spent the last part of his career fighting cancer and serving as a cancer outreach advocate. 

So, yes, I think we see where you're coming from, Dr. Santomauro.