Here and There

Finally, the Florida electorate seems to be catching on, and won’t be electing Katherine Harris to the U.S. Senate.

Were you shocked/confused/elated/dismayed by the headline here, much as I was, until you read on to the last word?

“U.S. Troops Agree to Leave Baghdad [...] Checkpoints”

Ha, damn!

I’m feeling … blah these days. At the risk of embarrassment, I care about politics in the United States. But underlying that care is a belief in the importance of law and an interest in the goings on in people’s lives.

That said, the upcoming election has me a bit depressed. Even the best, most rosy scenario I can envision won’t cure some of the ills facing the country and the world.

Call it cynicism, I just can’t imagine things getting any better anytime soon, no matter who’s making the call on policy.

I see the media and the public anxious for a new face, a new set of sound-bite ideas. But that same media and the same public seem to lack the attention span necessary to get to the heart of today’s problems. Buzzes come and go, and the grind seems to swallow up any palpable excitement as quickly as it appears on the national stage.

I’d love to be proven wrong. I’d love it if any number of election night scenarios ushered in a Congress (even one close to the make-up of the current one, God forbid) that took governing seriously. A Congress that told special interests and glad-handing lobbyists to go back to business, that government wasn’t for sale. I’d love to see a new set of election rules: one that made candidates more responsive to their potential constituents, not corporations; one that didn’t let lawmakers get away with evasive non-answers to a press that is simply doing its job; one in which ethics are actually enforced; one that is transparent and whose accountability is taken seriously.

I don’t blame Republicans for the current erosion in Washington. Any party that’s been in power that long inevitably tends to corrode. I do blame Democrats for not offering the public something like a true alternative. And I blame that same public for buying into the Republican scheme time and again.

It’s always a good idea to be weary of power. If the Democrats win back one or both houses of Congress, I will be as skeptical and inquiring and incredulous of them as I am now of Republicans.

No, not technical ones. I titled this post “Difficulties” because I want to point out that I would love nothing more than to lay into Democrats for a while. But with a president and VP like the ones we have, it’s very, very hard to do so.

Check out these quotes from election rallies today:

“[Democrats] don’t have any plan for victory…. They will leave before the job is done.”

“You cannot win a war unless you are willing to fight the war.”

(and my personal favorite) “The Democrat approach on Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses.”

Don’t you love how there’s no distinction at all anymore between “terrorists” in Iraq (guerrilla civil warriors) and “terrorists” who flew planes into the World Trade Center?

Even better, by the president’s logic, I like to imagine a roomful of Democratic Party leaders, sitting around the table with their bottles of Evian liberal spring water, tossing campaign strategies around. “What do we really think the voters will respond to?” Barack Obama asks. “Oh, oh, I know,” Nancy Pelosi responds. “Losing another war!!!” “Yes,” cries the chorus of elites.

Bush is kidding himself. At least, I hope he is. I’ve accepted the fact that some members of Congress will hold onto their seats in next Tuesday’s election, that a total sweep of all incumbents will not take place. I’ve resigned to hoping for at least a small Democratic majority. But I know it’s never too late for the “October surprise,” this time taking the form of a dubious claim that Democrats will lose the war, raise taxes, and embolden gays and lesbians to spread their “heathenism” across the country. It just may work.

Wow, Donald Rumsfeld has outdone even himself. Video here. Story here.

Now, I’m doing my best to put myself in the poor secretary’s shoes. I helped launch the most ill-advised war in modern history, I helped put in place policies that from the outset led to a chaotic situation in Iraq, and have resisted every call in the 3.5 years since to try a different approach. On top of these great calamities, almost everyone has been calling on my boss to fire me for a long time now.

But doesn’t it betray your stern resolve and ultimate manliness to tell a bunch of reporters asking legitimate questions about a thing as serious as war to “back off”? I mean, aren’t you basically tendering your resignation with such a defensive comment?

“First of all, it has the benefit of being true…that it’s wrong,” Rumsfeld said with such Bushian aplomb and aptitude.

Of course, with George W. Bush as his superior, there’s no risk in Rumsfeld’s receiving a pink slip anytime soon. I have a feeling Laura and Barney may cave on Iraq before the stodgy old curmudgeon at the Pentagon.
And so the world must continue its suffering at the hands of the inept…

PS: I cross-categorized this post as “journalism” because of Rumsfeld’s effrontery of the press today.

Call me cynical, but when I hear about speeches like Bush’s today, I foresee Congress narrowly remaining in Republicans’ control.

Stephen Colbert interviews a self-proclaimed “conservative” congressman from Georgia, and asks the man, who co-sponsored legislation that would allow the 10 commandments in public buildings, to name those 10 commandments.

The response is hilarious and frightening, as is the entire 5-minute clip.

Watch it here.

I love reading about poll results. The latest I have in mind is on the Washington Post’s website.

But seriously, every story I read about a survey tends to skate right over what seems the really significant bit of information. In the story linked to above, the fact that as many “independents” in the poll (45 percent) preferred to see Democrats take back the House of Representatives as those who had no opinion is startling.

Think about that. The Democratic Party, poised to take control of the legislative branch of our government, is running neck-and-neck with shrugged shoulders.

I’m glad to see the descent (let’s hope it lasts) of this extremely right-wing iteration of the Republican Party. But my god. Since when could vague notions of complete apathy beat out one of the major parties? This truly speaks volumes about the state of politics in the U.S. in 2006.

After receiving three New York Times op-ed endorsements, to varying degrees of excitement, and a tacit acknowledgement that he is no longer dismissing the idea, it is perhaps time I at least mentioned the possibility of Barack Obama running for president in 2008.

From what I’ve read and heard, I think his candidacy would be a good thing. His views are mostly moderate and agreeable. But perhaps more than anything else, he’s articulate and doesn’t seem to inspire the level of backlash that a “cadidate Clinton” would inspire. (Let’s not discount the near-future certainty of a mountain of dirt uncovered on Obama.)

I’ve never thought his short time in national politics was a handicap for higher office. In fact, it may turn a lot of those anti-Washington voters on to know he’s not as beholden to the ways of the capital city.

Please don’t take this post as any sort of endorsement of Obama as president. It’s more of an approval for his candidacy. I’m glad he has at least opened up to the idea.

UPDATE: I may have found a potential disqualifier for the junior senator from Illinois: his middle name is Hussein. That surely won’t play well in certain parts of the country.

UPDATE 2: Is the Times editorial page requiring its columnists to trumpet support, in whatever form, for Obama? Bob Herbert weighs in for tomorrow’s edition.

AP reports that scientists from the U.S. and U.K. have successfully developed a rudimentary method for making things invisible.

As I read the article, I saw a future random everyday person such as myself, in his or her glass-domed futurepod, wondering about the origins of such a device. He or she turns on his or her googletron and wishes for archival material on the whatever-it’s-called.

This could be the beginning of something huge. And scary.

I’ve read the stories. I’ve seen the speeches (okay, not really, but maybe I saw a clip on the Daily Show or something). George W. Bush has been parading around pointing to increased revenue for the federal government, and claiming his beloved tax cuts are responsible.

I didn’t want to give him this one, but I’ve been too preoccupied to look into any further.

Luckily for me, economists at the American Enterprise Institute, the Congressional Budget Office, and the U.S. Treasury Department bothered to poke around. And here’s what they found.

Not necessarily an out-and-out refutation, but definitely a correction (if Bush were a newspaper, a funny enough thought, he’d have to admit the mistake). And if the above-linked story from the Washington Post had legs, it would take the wind out of the president’s sails.

Okay, enough metaphor. You get the point, the main one being we’re still running a deficit, and that without Bush’s tax cuts, there’s a good chance we’d still be in the black, or at least a lot closer to zero.

This year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Muhammad Yunus, is from Bangladesh. While it’s debatable whether more Americans have heard of Bangladesh or microcredit, Mr. Yunus is a deserving recipient of the esteemed award.

Before I go into this too far, I should say my grasp of any economics, from the personal to the micro and macro levels, is scant. My financial plan works something like this: get money, spend money, repeat cycle. But over the last few years, through various amateur attempts, I’ve come to understand a little more.

That said, microcredit is an idea, revolutionary at its inception, that works to bring some sense of fairness to poor people the world over. With financial security comes peace, so the logic goes.

The idea was codified and defined at the Microcredit Summit, February 2-4, 1997 thusly: programmes [that] extend small loans to very poor people for self-employment projects that generate income, allowing them to care for themselves and their families.

Obviously poor people, the prevailing conventional wisdom has gone, lack the resources that would make them eligible or attractive for such a leg up. The cycle of poverty was therefore doomed to perpetuity.

What’s the incentive of giving money to poor people? Surely it can’t be pure altruism. Altruism has never turned a profit.

Indirect benefits include: more people working, paying taxes, spending money to buy things, raising healthy, happy families. Direct benefits include: well, other than hoping for voluminous amounts of low-interest loans (that are ostensibly paid back in a reasonably timely manner), there don’t appear to be any for lenders, other than the “rising tide” theory of economics.

Yunus’s Grameen Bank has been engaged in microcredit lending for a little over 30 years. It has also branched out into other forms of poverty alleviation programs, such as housing loans, savings, and venture capital. Estimates state that the bank has given out roughly $5 billion in loans to more than 4 million people.
At a time in history as war-torn as the present, with nearly all work undertaken to counter the bloodshed obscured and undermined, it makes sense that the peace prize be given to a pioneer for seeking to end poverty. Sure, war and terrorism are not black and white ideas, but increased economic opportunity could work wonders toward building a more just, tolerant, and peaceful world.

I can’t help looking at a poll of the U.S. Senate race in Virginia and thinking, Okay, the X percent who are for Sen. George Allen (R) are perfectly okay with his racist remarks.

Does that make these poll-responders racist? I don’t like brandishing labels, but sometimes a spade is a spade (pun intended).

In case you’ve been in a coma, Allen was caught on camera in August referring to an American (native Virginian, no less) of Indian ancestry as “Macaca.” I don’t think anyone knows for sure what that slur means yet, but we can all bet Allen wasn’t using it politely.

So, according to the latest Washington Post poll, 49 percent of the great Commonwealth of Virginia is racist. Nice to have a number pinned down.

John Cassidy’s article in the October 16, 2006 issue of The New Yorker about Rupert Murdoch asks the question whether Murdoch is moving the left politically. Cassidy makes a pretty persuasive argument that this is indeed what’s happening, evidenced by the mogul’s apparently star-crossed admiration of both Clintons and Tony Blair and reluctance to embrace George W. Bush.

But does embracing centrist Democrats and moderate liberals such as Blair, necessarily mean Murdoch is gravitating toward the other end of the spectrum?

Didn’t we all move to the left when the political spectrum shifted under our feet? It used to be balancing budgets and embracing free markets were property of the right. Now they’re bona fide “Democratic” issues, and some conservatives in this country go as far as demanding protectionist measures, which in many cases fly in the face of laissez-faire relaxation.

By now, most Democrats are not, contrary to perception, soft on defense. They approve grotesquely inflated military budgets and give war plans the green light. Indeed, “peace movements” in this country have been pushed so far to the fringe as to render them legislatively obsolete and doomed to perpetual mockery.

The “right” in this country, well, do we really need to go over this? While under Republican watch, we’ve seen spending explode. The Bush Administration has engaged the country in multiple “interventionist” wars and battles.

Cassidy’s article hinges on whom he’ll support for president of the U.S. in 2008, of the two presumed frontrunners John McCain and Hillary Clinton. And Cassidy is right to suggest that the fact the Clinton is even being considered is meaningful.

Slamming Hillary and Bill Clinton in his papers and cable news programs got Murdoch readers and viewers. But now that Bill is out of office and Hillary is so popular representing the state of New York, less so.

Questions remain. Is it simply Murdoch’s rebellious nature? Is it the influence of his 37-year-old Chinese wife Wendi, whom Cassidy dubs “Murdoch’s closest confidant”? His past as a socialist? His Calvinist upbring?

I’d guess it’s a little bit of everything.

Either way, it would be nice to see the owner of Fox News removing his nose from the ass of either party, and instead going with ideas over ideology.

In tomorrow’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman quotes Democratic pollsters James Carville and Stan Greenberg as saying their surveys show the number-one issue on people’s minds is energy independence.

If so, it’s about damn time.

I, like thousands, possibly millions of others, read Friedman’s Times columns regularly, and I’ve noticed energy independence is one of a few topics he won’t let go of. What originally caught my attention is the proposition that this one idea touches on many areas of life in the U.S. today. From the environment, to the economy, to national security and even terrorism, cutting the umbilical on fossil fuels imported from nations with questionable regimes is a no-brainer.

That may come across as self-righteous, but now we have data to back-up the assertion that this issue has weight. In fact, according to Carville and Greenberg’s polling, 42 percent said it was the most important issue. When faced with multiple choices (read: more than two), that’s amazing plurality.