He's Back!

In this incredible unwinding of the world financial system, and the equally incredible scope and nature of the unfolding response of our government, we are hearing that - even in this contentious election year - members of both parties are so sobered by the severity of what we're facing, that they are ready to put aside partisan differences to find a solution.

This seems particularly disingenuous.

Because at least a large part of how we got into this disaster is by so-called free market Republicans having their way.

Unless the events of the past few weeks have caused a wholesale conversion of Republican ideology - which I could imagine it might have - Republicans are having to surrender their deepest convictions about government and economics and make common cause with their favorite whipping boy, big government, spendthrift Democrats.

Remember the colorful, bitter goal set by - was it Dick Armey? - to shrink government to a size so small you could drown it in the bathtub?

When I read the proposals the Fed Chairman and Secretary of the Treasury said they were going to bring to Congress, even though they were till vague and non-specific, it took my breath away. These were proposals from the administration that may have crested the conservative revolution begun with Ronald Reagan's election.

I confess that, even as a lifelong liberal Democrat and admirer of Franklin Roosevelt - who believes that the regulations enacted as what we now know (and conservatives hate) as the New Deal - I never imagined I would see such a dramatic government takeover of the mechanism of American business.

I have watched Vladimir Putin drown the infant capitalist we naively believed was about to mature from the wreck of failed Communism, with sorrow. He seemed way more able to manipulate the workings of business in Russia than would have seemed conceivable in our country for even the strongest president.

Until this week.

Perhaps there is no parallel here to Putin's putting into prison on a trumped up charge the richest man in Russia.

But surely the government bailout of the largest insurance and mortgage companies in the world, and the proposal apparently on the table to form a new agency that will use public money to buy the risky mortgages that seem to be making it impossible for our economy to get its feet under it, are just as shocking.

It may be that we will look back on this as one might the decision to amputate all four limbs of a person who has contracted that lethal systemic infection that races from the extremities to the body's trunk. It was the only way to save the person's life. But sometime later there will be a conversation - maybe including the person whose existence has been reduced to an immobile torso, about whether it was a felicitous decision.

I confess that since it doesn't seem to me - at the moment - as if whatever Congress may decide will truncate my life as drastically as that, I am glad they are going to do whatever they do.

But it is likely to have an abundance of unintended consequences which we - and the rest of the world that has thrown in its lot with our economy - will be living with for a long time.

And, as for a government so small you could drown it in the bathtub? I would say that infant just grew to a size that can pretty powerfully challenge the one who might try.

The best thing about this election, and the economic meltdown is:

when they're over, they'll be over

the law of gravity will not have been repealed

we will all still wonder how much oil there may be left to find and how much time we may have - or not have - to figure out better ways to power our appetites before we smudge the air beyond its ability to carry the oxygen we need

we are exposing to whatever part of the world may not yet know or believe that the grandiose claims of our nation to be the ruler and savior of the world are as phony as all messianic claims

we can resume our other obsessions - soap operas, reality shows, NFL and lotteries - which this long campaign has so rudely interrupted

and maybe, just maybe, we may have a president who seems interested in something more than bullying the world and those who disagree, and makes us happy with the face he presents to the rest of the world

would that take care of all our problems? No. But then the challenges will always give us something to focus on. And should be elect someone who considers himself a citizen of the world rather than the coach of THE WORLD'S GREATEST NATION, it will take away some of the sport for those who wish us ill, and make their recruiting efforts harder.

Well, yes, anyone who is conscious anywhere in the world today, has to be uneasy if not scared.

Remember Harry Truman asking for someone to find him a one-handed economist? "Every economist I talk to," Truman complained, "says, 'On the one hand... but on the other hand...' I want one who only says what's on his one hand."

The really scary thing is that if there was any doubt before that no one really understands nor knows what's going on in the world's economy, that doubt has evaporated.

I don't feel quite ready to declare the sky falling, but, not having been here in 1929, I do wonder.

Greed, everyone says.

Well, duh. That's akin to saying pornography is caused by human sex drive.

So, what shall we do? Redraw the human genome without the greed gene? Or sex drive?

There is no answer, dear fellows. There is only the inevitable fear and loathing that follows the exposure of human folly.

If we are lucky and it's not too late, we may find a way to keep this episode from pulling us into a disaster as nasty and lengthy as the Great Depression. If not, holy shit.

I used to try to comfort myself when we looked to be on the edge of a big meltdown, by saying that if we go down, we all go down together. That was before it really looked as if we might all go down together.

You see, I figured the Alan Greenspans were as smart and powerful as we portrayed them. And wile they thought it was generally better to let things play out, if things got bad enough they would ride in on their white horse and rescue us.

Which they tried to do, with Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack, only to discover they were shooting blanks.

So, along with global warming, the global marketplace looks to be teetering on the edge of a precipice. We know it. We are scrambling to keep our balance.

But now we know forces beyond our control - luck largely - will cause us either to regain out balance or tumble into the abyss.

Now we know...

As I listened this morning to Sarah Palin again make her claim - now debunked many times over - about saying no thank you to the infamous bridge to nowhere, and to the thunderous response it still gets, after every major and minor news organization has shown how bogus it is, I began to wonder whether the end of our species may be hastened by a wrong turn in the evolutionary development of our nervous system.

It is what we are most proud of, what often leads us to believe, wrongly, that we have somehow risen above other animals' need to depend on the rhythms and forces of natural forces.

I can't say that I blame Governor Palin for repeating the thing, even though she must (I hope) feel at least a little uneasy knowing it's really bullshit. But it gets such a wild and enthusiastic response. People clearly love it, and love her for saying it in such a feisty way. I'm sure I have used lines like that over forty years of preaching, feeling appreciated when people respond, even if I have doubts that what I am saying will hold much water.

That's the dead end issue.

Even though it may win her votes, misrepresenting reality eventually comes to grief.

Because reality is finally all we have. When we try to distort or trick out reality to suit what feels for the moment something we want that doesn't comport with reality, we set up a big train wreck ahead.

I wonder if any other creature can do that?

We ascribe emotions to other animals. When my dog greets me enthusiastically as I come through the door, I think it is because he loves me.

But isn't a much more likely understanding of his enthusiasm that I feed and shelter him? He is nurturing his survival mechanism, which always seems a good idea.

But if something about Sarah Palin's seeming to put a sharp stick in the eye of the usual power brokers - even if I know it's only a pose - and uses a line I know to be false, to ignore or even refute reality, I will cheer her on.

If it turns out that our ability to ignore reality, even seem to create an alternate reality, with our supple complex nervous system, developed beyond that of any other creature... if it turns out this was a dead end, a wrong turn in evolutionary development, because it doesn't enhance our ability to survive, then what we most prize will turn out to be a trophy for some future entity to hang on its wall.

Though I may once have been smug about this, thinking I would never be suckered into cheering on some Sarah Palin when she manipulated my emotions, I know better now.

Matt Tibi, the wild man political writer for Rolling Stones, has an article in the most recent issue in which he asks why it is that Obama, making the same old speeches Democrats have been making for a generation, is being greeted like a rock star. And, even more, Tibi wonders why it is that he, most cynical of all political writers, can't seem to curb his own feeling that Obama, despite his standard issue stump speech, may actually believe what he is saying. Is he possibly someone worthy of this high office in which we place way too much power?

Tibi never comes up with an answer. But you do know before the article is finished, that he has - against is better judgment, decided to take a flyer on Obama, to suspend his cynicism and trust that vague but insistent sense in him that this guy my just be the real item.

Me, too.

Is anyone else out there almost as embarrassed by this latest bullshit as we were when we reelected George Bush?

Since I don't have a TV i don't see all that most of the rest of you are being subjected to. So it may be unfair for me to assume that I could watch all that and keep my wits about me. Maybe, if I was watching i, too, would be all caught up in whether Obama trashed Palin with his lipstick remark, or whether McCain is again reaching beyond his demonstrably limited grasp.

OK, Barak, give up acting as if someone snuck up on you.

Let's hear about Iraq and Iran, Russia, the worldwide credit crisis, how to keep terrorists from acquiring nuclear capability, tax policies and the disappearing middle class, the changing role of the United States in a world in which military might cannot solve all the problems, the disintegration of our country's infrastructure, what will be required of all of us in order to hunker down and seriously address finding alternative ways to power our needs.

It must be hard to shut out the din of pundits and and the chattering of the blogs, all telling you what we average Americans want to hear.

Screw what we want to hear.

What do we need to hear in order to become the nation we have always said we want to be?

McCain wants to be president. He's doing what he thinks he should to win the election. I presume if he does win he will basically do the bidding of those to whom he is ingratiating himself in the campaign. I don't fault him for that; history is on his side. I just won't vote for him.

Obama has been perceived, not as a savior, but as a citizen of the world, like my children who live and work in various parts f the world, hav a multi-racial, multi-national sense of themselves.

Probably, because this is the first time we have had such a candidate, so totally different from all those who have gone before who focused on how to make or keep the country the strongest in the world, Obama's people are telling him to tone down the citizen of the world stuff.

Maybe they're right. But if he gets himself elected by appealing to the old model, he'll end up having to govern by the old model.

For what?

What to make of my having morphed from an old style Clinton policy wonk, to speculating about the role of viscera, passion, non-linear, non-rational energy driving, not only how people vote, but just about everything else?

I think it is the anxiety I have felt the past couple of weeks watching the way the country is reacting (or perhaps the way the country is being portrayed as reacting by reporters who, like many, are bored after months of rehashing all the same old policy arguments) as responding to the red meat bullshit the Republicans are putting out as their take on what we want to hear.

When I first heard that chorus: drill baby, drill, I knew these next two months were going to grate on my nerves.

Some part of me wants to be petulant; if this really is what people want, if this is what wins elections, then let them have it.

I just watched an interview Obama did with Keith Oberman (yes, it is clear that he likes Obama and hopes he gets elected) and was again struck by how happy I will be if he should become our voice and face to the world.

Then I read in Daily Kos the disappointment this most partisan of all Democrats feels that Obama is not passionate enough.

I don't know if I think it would be good advice, smart for Obama to try to ramp up his style. I do know that his seemingly natural, comfortable way of speaking and answering questions makes me believe and trust his authenticity as I haven't a national politician in a long time.

Both Gore and Kerry were told they needed to get more passionate on the stump, both tried and lost whatever honest voice they may have had.

I hope Obama can resist.

In the past week i have begun receiving a lot of emails with photos and rumors that question Barak Obama's patriotism and crow about the red, white and blue credentials of the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket, the young governor of Alaska.

I even have received - twice - a photo (I suspect it may be doctored) of Governor Palin in a bikini (top red and white, bottom stripes, holding a rifle. The first was sent by someone who is appalled that this rough woman should be a serious national candidate, and the second by someone who thought it sent a positive message about this true American who highlights the virtues of ordinary people.

What makes me feel better bout my judgment that Obama is the better choice (and, I believe, may be a really extraordinary choice) is that Republicans have pretty much given up trying to undermine his ideas and policies and have focused on whether he is a true patriot or "one of us."

I always felt this was what Bush's handlers made the centerpiece of their candidate's strengths largely because they worried there wasn't much else to sell.

A friend who has ben a Republican operative for decades, and with whom i love to exchange because she is more willing to speak honestly and put aside all the hype than most Republicans I have known, last night in conversation got dewey-eyed about McCain's time as a prisoner of war and said she just didn't sense the same passion for this country in Obama.

What makes me feel worse is that I think this is the sort of thing that scares lots of people into voting for a candidate they otherwise wouldn't.

I hope against hope this election won't go the way of the last refuge of scoundrels.

Guess this is now all over the web. Nowhere to hide in the cyber world...


http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24255&id=13696-1255670-bFV1Sqx&t=3

You know what they say is the difference between a soccer mom and a pit bull?

Lipstick.

If the McCain/Palin ticket prevails in November that ad-lib line from her speech last night will be chiseled in the annals of this election.

I’d best begin by owning up to what I have tried, first to claim, then to hide:
I am the Ivy league elitist Hilary Clinton tried to portray Barak Obama as being.

As I suspect is true for almost everyone, I never knew, growing up, where I belonged. Like most Americans I assumed we were middle class. My father, who had grown up in Puerto Rico where his father was Episcopal Bishop, was sent off to boarding school where he rubbed elbows with some very rich boys and many (this was Kent School, founded by an Episcopal monk for boys not rich or smart enough to go to Choate) who were not.

My mother grew up in New York City where her father was an internist in the days before doctors were rich.

My father went to Princeton on scholarship, thanks to, I believe, family connections, was a member of Ivy Club (I have the sterling silver bowl given to him and to my mother as a wedding present, their names engraved on it). At the end of his junior year he lost his scholarship due to poor grades. He sold his stamp collection to a rich friend of his father for the exact amount of his senior year tuition.

My mother went to The Brearley School, a finishing school for girls, and after graduating (if she did) she worked in her father’s office for a spell until she married my father.

When my father graduated from Princeton in 1935, at the height of the Great Depression, another friend of his father by the name of Procter, gave him a job with Procter & Gamble. He began as a stock boy in a grocery store in the South Bronx. Over the years he worked his way up to becoming the youngest district manager in the company in charge of North and South Carolina, and then went to the company’s wholly owned subsidiary in the Philippines where he was Vice President in charge of sales.

My two sisters and I came back from Manila to boarding school and college. I went to Penn, sometimes considered the step-child of the Ivy League.

I began to consider myself a Democrat in 1952 – I was 12 - when Adlai Stevenson ran against Dwight Eisenhower. If one can pinpoint a moment when the Democrats and Republicans traded places in the class consciousness of this country, it may have been then.

A cool intellectual with an unusual biography (he was a single, divorced man), Stevenson appealed to me in a way plain speaking soldier hero Ike did not.

In 1960, thanks to the hegemony of television in American life, the image/style/class business became the hallmark of American political life which it has been ever since.

It began with Franklin Roosevelt whom my grandfather considered a traitor to his class (he collected dimes with Roosevelt’s likeness on them and threw them into the Great South Bay on the ferry ride to his summer home on Fire Island.).

Our national myth suggests class has no place in this most democratic of all countries. Because we are ashamed to admit that we have class – not to mention racial – prejudices they lurk in the shadows until Obama says that angry people who have been losing economic ground cling to their religion and guns as solace.

Or Sarah Palin calls herself a soccer mom and draws the analogy to a pit bull.

Maybe the bravest thing I ever heard a politician say was many years ago when Lawton Chiles was running for reelection as governor of Florida. He was running on a strong civil rights platform. During a Q&A session a man said to him, “Governor, you’re a southerner, you grew up here; are you going to tell us you’re not prejudiced?”

“Oh. hell no,” Chiles responded, “I’m shot full of prejudice; I just try not to let them run my life.”

John F. Kennedy was suspect because, although he went to Choate and Harvard, he was Irish Catholic and his father made his money running booze during prohibition. Yet he became the darling of the so-called eastern elite, and Goldwater was preparing to attack him for that when Kennedy was shot.

Now Obama, with about the least likely biography of an elitist, is on the defensive against those same charges.

In fact I believe the whole class thing – on which every election has been decided for over a generation – is our way of avoiding serious engagement with the issues.

When the Republicans demeaned John Kerry’s public war record in 2004, it wasn’t about his war record, it was to highlight how improbable it was that an effete Ivy leaguer could out-swagger a Texas brush cutter, no matter what their histories.

I do not necessarily see that as a bad thing. It may simply be a sign that the world has become so confusing to most of us – who really has any idea what to do about the price of oil, national debt, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, global climate change, the rise of China, India and the Islamist world that challenges our hegemony, or how to make decent health care available at an affordable cost?

My take is that the general stance of the Democrats to use government to provide services to those on the lower end, to make economic policy that targets incomes between $30K - $100K, and to emphasize our nation’s place as partner in the world, is preferable to removing government from the economy to give business a free hand, and aggressively defend our military and economic primacy in the world.

That said, I do like Obama and Biden’s image better than McCain and Palin’s.

And I understand that a great many feel exactly the opposite. And how many are in each group likely is going to decide the election. Not economic or foreign policy.

In John McCain the Republicans have found a war hero, and in Sarah Palin they have found someone who actually and authentically is the person George W. Bush has been trying to persuade us he is.

In Barak Obama the Democrats have found an appealing, attractive, smart man who embodies the promises America has made about herself for two centuries. And in Joe Biden a bright warhorse to offer reassurance to those who worry about Obama’s youth and inexperience.

Do I really have confidence that I know how either would govern? No. I remember that George Bush was a floundering lost soul until November 11, 2001, when he was handed the bloody shirt that was to define his legacy. None of us knows what will face us the next four years.

Because class is the apple in the garden we are forbidden to eat, it is the one we can’t resist. So the campaign will be nasty and personal. I suppose the size of the stakes makes that appropriate.

Your pit bull against my eloquent orator. Let the games begin.

So, everyone asks, what do you think of McCain's VP pick?

The only honest answer is, startling.

Which - in a world in which we said what was on our minds rather than what we we carefully first vet so as to say what we think we are supposed to - is what anyone would say, regardless of party affiliation or their approval of disapproval.

And, surely, what motivated the aging Senator to make the choice.

Insiders (whoever they may be) say he really wanted to choose Joe Lieberman, but religious conservatives couldn't abide his pro-choice (is that what we still cal those of us who want to keep abortion legal?) stance, nor what this age considers an at least moderately liberal voting record.

I have no idea whether Biden was Obama's heartfelt first choice. But it certainly wasn't startling.

And wasn't intended to be.

Biden might be said to have been chosen to lengthen Obama's rather short political experience, boost his foreign policy credentials, add some age to the ticket, and, just maybe, pick for the person who would become president if Obama dies, who we could imagine being up to the job.

Now, Sara Palin may or may not be up to the job.

I always thought George H.W. Bush's choice of Dan Quayle for his running mate was made from his petulance. Those Bushes all seem to have a chip on their shoulder because of feeling no one takes them seriously. I knew Bush, Sr. when he was a congressman from Texas, then Ambassador to China, Chair of the Republican Party and head of the CIA. (I say I "knew" him; he was a parishioner in the DC parish in which I was an assistant, so I spoke to him several times, but hardly was someone with whom he hung out.)

He chose Quayle, I believe, to thumb his nose at all the political heavyweights who regarded him as a lightweight. And perhaps to make certain he would not be overshadowed during his presidency. (Unlike JFK whose choice of Lyndon Johnson was considered risky because of how totally Johnson outweighed Kennedy in experience and past power.)

When Bush lifted Clarence Thomas out of relative obscurity to nominate him to the Supreme Court, it confirmed for me that Bush was again letting his petulance determine his choice. In the face of a Democratic defeat of Robert Bork, a well-known jurist even if a radically conservative one, Bush said, "You want a black face on the court; i'll give you one."

A move not unlike McCain's VP pick.

The interesting thing is that simply by making the pick, Bush required the Senate to take seriously a man who likely would have gone unnoticed for the rest of his life in an obscure spot on the DC Court of Appeals.

As Sara Palin would have. And may yet.

But for the moment we are al required to take her seriously, since she stands one election away from the backup to the highest position in the land.

On the face of it, aside from her gender, and some of the marks that McCain has never been able to fill out to the satisfaction of his party's right wing - abortion, blue collar identity, guns, religion - she looks to be a person I would have a hard time imagining in high office.

But there she is. And we'll be getting a hard look at her now.

My guess is - and this guess is strengthened by today's clearly reluctant and unhappy revelation that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant and will soon marry the man with whom she conceived. Poor Governor Palin - who has championed abstinence education as the best means of reducing teenage pregnancy - used to have the protection of Alaska's remoteness against public display of her family foibles. No longer.

Though I devoutly hope she returns soon to complete her term as governor, I do feel for her.