Christopher M. Matthews

Last month, Salon’s Mark Benjamin investigated preventable suicides and deaths at Fort Carson, a U.S. Army post in Colorado in his series “Coming Home.“

Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the Army’s top psychiatrist, was also on the conference call. Ritchie explained that legal, occupational, spousal and substance-abuse problems are often involved in these suicides, but that they aren’t sure what’s causing the problems. “Sometimes it’s hard to identify what was the actual precipitant,” she said.

Throughout the conference call, no one suggested that the country’s two wars might have something to do with the rise in suicides.

Further, according to the Army they have devoted tremendous resources to fight the growing suicide rates. Chiarelli listed program after program created to prevent soldiers from taking their own lives. In particular, the general highlighted the Army’s interactive video, Beyond the Front, which depicts soldiers on the brink of suicide and asks the viewer to make choices that will either result in the soldier receiving help or committing suicide.

“I wish we could show you Beyond the Front, because what you described, the Beyond the Front video, the interactive video, that is serving as the centerpiece for our current stand-down, gets at those issues,” he said.

Judging by the crowd on Friday, that’s a long way off. And as Michaux himself observed, “Small groups like this don’t mean nothing,”

The idea for this protest came about after CNBC’s Rick Santelli called for a new tea party during a rant on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange. Conservative groups took up the call and now protests like this have been popping up across the country; this one was organized by some of those groups, along with the American Spectator.

Though the event’s planners described the tea party as a non-partisan event, the crowd appeared to be largely Republican, a mix of pin-stripe suit types in town for the Conservative Political Action Conference and people who’d come in for the day Maryland and Virginia. But while the protesters’ dress codes may have differed, they were at least united by their hatred of government intervention.

The real Boston Tea Party actually came in response to a tax-cut — the British government cut tea tariffs for the East India Company in the colonies, allowing them to lower their prices and undercut American merchants. That, however, was lost on the crowd Friday, which might not have shared its predecessor’s views on taxation but had a similar revolutionary fervor. One of the stars of the show, conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, even greeted the crowd by saying “Hello fellow rebels!”

Malkin, a speaker at the event, was met in turn with cheers from protesters wielding signs like “Don’t tread on me” and “Say no to Porkulus.” Another, held by a little girl, read, “Don’t tax what I haven’t earned.”

One after another, the speakers attacked federal bailouts and increased taxation. Even Joe the Plumber was there, adding to the chorus of outrage.

“We’re here for one reason and one reason only,” event organizer J. Peter Freire, of the American Spectator, told the crowd. “The government has gotten too big.”

Speaking to Salon after the protest, Freire said the tea parties had harnessed the genuine anger over government intervention. “I’ve gotten 4,000 emails through the website,” he said. “These are people who have jobs and kids but they took time off to come today because this has really tapped into something.”

Freire also said that the protesters had not assembled to criticize a particular party or politician because Democrats and Republicans alike were to blame for “fiscal recklessness.”

Still, anyone on the scene couldn’t help but notice the angry shouts of “socialist” and “Marxist” whenever Obama’s name was mentioned. Indeed, many of the protesters had harsh words for the president.

“I don’t believe he’s my commander-in-chief,” said Maryland resident Kathy Fuller. “People are afraid. I’m buying durable goods, because in five years there won’t be companies to make them and inflation will be too high to buy them.” Fuller added that the GOP is not “the party of ‘no,’” and does have constructive ideas — but, she said, the mainstream media keeps them from the public.

Judging by the protesters’ suggestions, those solutions include cutting taxes and spending. As for Fuller, she says that if things continue to get worse she was prepared to do whatever’s neccessary.

“Revolution, absolutely,” said Fuller.

“Tonight all Americans were proud eyewitnesses to history as an African-American president addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the GOP’s Senate leader, and therefore one of Obama’s chief antagonists.

Republicans said they looked forward to working with the president, and hailed his calls for fiscal responsibility.

“As a member of Congress sitting on the floor I could not help but feel proud of the history that was made here tonight,” said Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio. “Further, I hope that President Obama will abide by his message of fiscal restraint.”

The Republican applause during the president’s speech was emblematic of the GOP response. Almost grudgingly, the red side of the aisle gave standing ovation after standing ovation to Obama’s calls to hold Wall Street accountable, save the auto industry, and fight terrorism. What else could they do?

And afterwards, outside the chamber, Republicans desperately searched for a line of attack. What they came up with was best summarized by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.

“The president did a good job of reiterating the broad outlines of his agenda,” Pence said. “But the devil is in the details.”

The debate over those details, Pence promised, will begin tomorrow.

One of the conference’s attendees, Richard Burt, the U.S.’ chief negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union, questioned Perle’s approach. “Is regime change really a realistic option?” Burt asked. “The Iranians have a strong national identity, millions of them fought to the death against Iraq.”

While Perle didn’t go so far as to suggest a military invasion, he advocated covert operations on Iranian soil, working with internal opposition groups within Iran and increasing economic pressure on the Islamic regime, all in the hopes of forcing a regime change. He also dismissed the possibility of defusing Iran’s nuclear intentions through diplomatic means.

“I don’t think we can persuade the Iranians,” Perle said. “They will not be talked out of their nuclear program.”

Perle further cautioned that President Obama’s expressed commitment to diplomacy could be dangerous, saying, “The danger is that Obama’s much more agreeable approach will be misconstrued as weakness.”

In an article in this month’s National Interest, Perle defended a similar argument — the one he made for the Iraq war. According to Perle, Saddam had to be removed because of the threat posed by an Iraq armed with WMD. The U.S. only got itself into trouble when it decided to occupy the country.

“The seminal error was, in my view, the failure to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis immediately after Saddam’s regime collapsed,” Perle wrote. “Had Iraq been enabled to stand up an interim government pending free elections to be held in, say, eighteen months, we might well have escaped the invidious role of occupier.”

Similarly, Perle indicated that if we could remove the Mullahs from power and give control to the Iranian people, a “secular” government would likely fill the void. However, Perle explained that he has never advocated American military action in Iran. Indeed, such an attack would likely come from Israel, he said.

Also at the press conference was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who said he hoped to hold a vote on the stimulus package Thursday, and told reporters that Senate Democrats are prepared to pass the legislation with or without significant Republican support. The GOP, he insisted, “can not hold the president of the United States hostage.”

Reid expressed his desire for bipartisan support of the bill, but it seems likely that the vote will fall largely along party lines, and the majority leader acknowledged that a Republican filibuster is a distinct possibility. At this point, Reid said, he’s more concerned with passing the stimulus than with garnering GOP support for it. That may be because, as he said at the press conference, he now believes he has the 60 votes that will be needed for passage.

If the bill does not go to a vote this evening, it appears likely that the Senate will work over the weekend until it does.

Experts in international law have heatedly debated whether the new administration should, or legally must, investigate torture allegations for possible prosecution. Obama advisors previously floated the idea of a commission with subpoena power and at least a fact-finding mandate to explore torture. But Hoyer suggested Thursday that the Obama White House might not have the stomach for any retrospective review. 

Earlier in the day, President Obama signed a series of executive orders concerning detainees. One establishes a taskforce, co-chaired by the defense secretary and attorney general, charged with evaluating detainee policy. A fact sheet sent out by the White House clarifies that the review would only include policy “going forward.”

During the campaign, Obama said he favored investigating torture. “If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,” he told an interviewer last April. Then he softened his comment, adding: “I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of the Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems to solve.”

In his remarks Thursday, Hoyer did not mention that congressional Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, might have their own reasons for being reluctant to turn over every stone. A December 2007 Washington Post article noted that four members of Congress, including Pelosi, received a briefing on the CIA’s detention and interrogation techniques in September 2002. A discussion of waterboarding was included in the briefing. Rather than objecting to the techniques, the lawmakers reportedly asked whether the program was tough enough.