Open Wide America!

Tis the season to be. . . oh, the hell with it!  A wise old solon once said that there are two things one never wants to watch too closely, sausage making and legislating.  Frankly, I prefer the former, as no matter how disgusting it may appear, there are two truths about sausage:  it tastes pretty good after all the messy business is finished, and it is against the law to fill it with bullshit.

So here we are on the verge of "major" health care reform, right?  Well let's see. When polled last week, more than sixty percent of Americans still preferred a Medicare-like, single payer system.  Sorry folks, but that one died when the insurance lobbyists and healthcare industry cranked up their lobbying campaigns and pumped more than $400,000,000 into the effort to kill it.  Even though more than forty Democratic senators are truly progressive and don't give a damn about insurance, and thus, Wall Street profits, there are those "corporate" Democrats, who were willing to sell out the people to keep the campaign coffers fat for the upcoming electoral season. I would condemn the Republicans here too, but they, long ago, sold their souls to big business and take all their marching orders from board rooms, rather than from their constituents.  Remember how Sarah Palin took a dump on her state, let alone on her oath of office to chase the bucks?  Need I say more about that crowd?

But. . . , say the moderates among us, "we know this bill is not everything we wanted, and there are real reforms in it so we should hold our noses and sign it into law anyway."  Really? Then why are the insurance companies celebrating what is left of this bill? Easy, they have achieved record profits and record stock performances in this recession?  They were willing to trade two Oliver Twist-like crumbs (a promise to keep people insured when they get sick and a promise to sign people up for insurance, even if they have pre-existing conditions) for thirty to forty million new, low-risk customers.  You see, this great bill requires all Americans to buy insurance, if they are currently uninsured.  And who are these uncovered folks?  Young people and the working poor who cannot now afford the premiums.  Guess what, with no immediate controls on the insurance companies to lower their prices, these lucky millions will be forced to buy in with an astronomical deductable and minimal coverage!  Thus, those monumental windfall profits will be all the more enriching, because the vast majority of the about-to-be-insured are in their twenties and thirties, you know, the group least likely to be using their insurance, so it will be money in the bank!

But wait, Tiny Tim, there is more!  You and I will be paying a subsidy to those same insurance companies to cover the premiums for the working poor, who cannot afford even the crappiest coverage.  By the way, there is nothing in the bill to bring down premiums or medical costs, now that there is no competitive public plan available. Ummm, doesn't that smokey flavor make this bovine fecal sandwich taste good?

My advice to all of you, right after this bill passes and all the back-slapping and photo ops are concluded at the White House. . .  call your stock brokers and buy as much insurance company stock as you can afford. You will then make enough money to move to a really cool country with real universal health care for everyone.  Oops I forgot, most of you lost your jobs and are hoping that your thousand dollar per month COBRA payment assistance plan will be extended by our caring members of Congress.  OK, so borrow some money against your home equity. . . yeah, I know, that was a pretty stupid suggestion too, since the value of your home is now less than half the value of your ever-expanding adjustable rate mortgage payments.  I would suggest you go to your bank for a personal loan, but they are way too busy trying to foreclose on your home now that you and I kept them in business with all that TARP money (TARP= Tax-payer Assistance for Record Profits).

So, as you and yours huddle around the Yule Log in some homeless camp under a freeway overpass this Christmas, maybe your spirits will be bolstered by President Obama's rhetorically perfect upcoming address about real and meaningful helathcare reform for all Americans.  But as you unwrap your Thrift Shop presents and sit down at the local Salvation Army kitchen for a scrumptious Holiday meal, take comfort in knowing that in the last election President Obama took more money from Wall Street and the Insurance companies than any other candidate in history.  One thing you have to admire him for though, he really does take care of his friends.

Feliz Navidad my fellow Americans!

Once Again, Peace is War

At the risk of losing my membership in the Obama-mania fan club, I was disappointed by the President's decision to pursue an enhanced military policy in Afghanistan.  It seems to me that all the deliberation and "expert" input on our Afghanistan agenda was heavily weighted in favor of the military option from the outset.  The decision to announce the Obama strategy at West Point, all but sealed the deal that it would be the same old story from an administration that ran for office promising a different kind of leadership.

Hey, I get the politics.  At the end of the day, it is easier to adhere to a status quo policy, than incur the inevitable wrath from the right, had the president opted for a disengagement strategy.  But then there was all that campaign rhetoric about "change we can believe in," and it seems like little more than an extension of the Bush/Cheney policies in foreign affairs.  Granted, Obama is infinitely more skillful at articulating his position than the Yosemite Sam-like rhetorical style of his predecessor, but in the end where is the fundamental difference in substance?

One can only wonder what must have been going through the minds of the Nobel Peace Prize selection committee when President Obama used the award ceremony as a platform for delivering the latest version of American might makes right rationalization.  From the stoic and rigidly impassive looks on the faces of the many dignitaries gathered in Oslo to hear Obama's lecture, we may have witnessed the last American politician to be so honored.

From a domestic political perspective, one can see that Obama is trying to draw more of his adversaries into his centrist coalition by waving the oft-used "Bloody Shirt."  Like Lyndon Johnson in 1964, President Obama would love to be able to claim that his bold domestic initiatives are to some degree bi-partisan.  And what better way to win over a few skeptical conservatives than dropping more bombs on the barren hills of Kandahar?   After all, Johnson did get some Republican support for his Great Society legislation.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Medicare, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, were all the more valid with key members of both parties signing on.  Lots of great photo ops were snapped and the signing pens were handed out by the dozens. All while the Napalm began falling near the DMZ and human fodder was being tallied for that long black wall that now adorns our nation's capitol.  For a society that claims to be the world champs in adoring peace, we have an abundance of monuments and statuary dedicated to war.

As President Obama never tires of sharing with us his deep faith in a Christian God, may I so humbly remind him that whenever one chooses to dance with the Devil, the Son of Darkness always gets to choose the music.  Perhaps, while buffing his shiny new medal for peace, President Obama might wish to ponder how well LBJ's Faustian bargain worked out for him?

The New Republican Strategy: Attack Success!

So, the latest strategy of the Republican Party is to label the Obama administration's economic strategies a failure because they. . . uh, well, worked?  Now that is an interesting take.  On the other hand, had Obama and his team done what FDR did to Hoover back in 1932, then Republicanism would be as dead as it was then.  Desperate for a way to stem the avalanche toward a deep and irreversible depression, President Hoover asked President-elect Roosevelt to join with him in developing a bi-partisan economic strategy that would work.  Roosevelt refused, believing there was nothing politically to gain by helping a Republican government head off an economic disaster.  Further complicating things for average Americans back then, was the tradition of waiting until March to swear in a new president.  For by late winter in 1932, the country was in complete financial and credit collapse, banks were failing at the rate of one per day, and jobs in the private sector were all but gone.

As any high school graduate can tell you, the cause of the Great Depression was the collapse of the Stock Market in 1929.  Too bad it isn't quite true.  Without a doubt, Wall Street played a pivotal role in the Depression scenario, but it was the banking failures of 1931 and especially '32 that really crushed the American economy.  Then as now, American businesses, both large and small, were dependent on a steady supply of credit to pay their day to day business expenses.  Everything from payrolls to the purchase of necessary raw materials was funded by short term loans from commercial banks.  Boiled down, the business cycle was pretty simple:  borrow money at the beginning of each month to cover expenses, and then pay down the loan with end of the month receivables, so one could borrow again.

The collapse of the booming securities markets of the 1920s was definitely alarming, but to average Americans it was little more than an interesting side show.  Very few workers were in the market, and for most it was almost fun to see the rich Wall Street fat cats skewered by their own insatiable greed.  But right beneath the quaking investment houses in New York, was a heavily leveraged American banking system without the reserves in capital to cover the speculation they had financed.  By the time FDR took office, and the American people really took notice, it was too late.  Banks were failing at an all time record pace, as panicked customers tried to withdraw all their savings. Credit had completely dried up, businesses could not cover their operating expenses, the work force was cut, inventories piled-up, prices plummeted and, well, you have all seen the history text photos of bread lines and shanty towns.

Leap ahead to 2008.  Wall Street is teetering on the edge as the Great American Mortgage Bubble has burst.  Investment, commercial, and retail banks, having been de-regulated by fifteen years of Republican leadership in Washington, are heavily leveraged in the bundled mortgage securities industry, and they are beginning to fail.  But this time, a Republican president, along with a Democratic President-elect, cooperate on a strategy to prevent a total collapse of our banking system.  The Bush program, called the Toxic Assets Relief Program, pumps almost a trillion dollars into the critically ill banking industry, followed in January (thanks to the Twentieth Amendment) by another trillion dollars in President Obama's Economic Stimulus package.  And guess what?  All but a handful of banks are saved.  Ten percent, rather than thirty percent unemployment, no bread lines and no Hoovervilles!  The investment markets are now recovering and most economists predict that 2010 will mark the beginning of a robust period of re-hiring and new job creation.

So what is the Republican strategy for the upcoming mid-term election cycle?  Easy, invent a problem where none really exists.  Taking a page from the failed policies of the 1920s, the Republican party is claiming that the deficits created by the Bush/Obama/Bernanke monetary policies will doom the country.  Add to that, a comical assertion that the above mentioned spending policies hurt rather than helped the economy, and you have their formula for electoral success.  Never mind the lessons of history, since there was no depression in 2008, then there would not have been one, right?  And all that shoring up of our nation's most important financial institutions was completely unnecessary, as the "Free Market" would have solved everything. . . you know, like it did in 1929, 1930, 1931, well, you get the picture.

But then what do you expect from the party that claims that Global Warming is an illusion, America has the best health care system in the world, escalating military involvement is the answer for all foreign policy dilemmas, Fred Flintstone and the dinosaurs actually lived together, and Sarah Palin is a great American.  Too bad President Obama put his country ahead of his politics back in 2008.  If only he'd acted like Franklin Roosevelt and allowed our finacial system to collapse.  Yeah, that is what we needed, the good old days of the Grapes of Wrath.  Now if only he would come to his senses in foreign policy too and start dropping nuclear bombs on Iran. . . you know, like Cheney suggested.

All the Way with LBJ, or Here We Go With BHO!

OK, I lied!  Even though it was a great idea to move over while my students were blogging, I found that I missed the therapeutic value of ranting.  So I am once again going to start up my left-wing, commie, radical, secular-humanistic, pinko, diatribes.  To my supporters, thanks for sticking around and to my detractors, well. . . if this bothers you so much then start a blog of your own.  I am always up for a battle of wits.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself about not being able to retire yet, when I decided to distract myself by diving into some light-hearted reading.  My choice of tomes:  General McChrystal's op-ed plea for more soldiers and Marines for Afghanistan.  Yes, I know, my idea of light reading is probably different than yours.  Anyway, I was over come by a Rod Serling-like creepiness that I had somehow witnessed this before.  Since I am not a believer in any multiple-life philosophies, nor was I in a chemically altered state, it seemed to me that I  must have indeed seen this before.  So, off I went to the Library of Congress website and found some interesting position papers written back in 1965.

Do you remember all those brainiacs that David Halberstam tabbed "The Best and Brightest?" Yeah those guys, Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, and LBJ's favorite general, William Westmoreland.  Well they were all weighing in with their expert assessments that if only the President, and then the American people, would send more troops to Vietnam, we could break the back of the Vietcong insurgency and their allies the North Vietnamese.  And there were all those Congressional stooges, falling all over themselves to get in front of a TV camera, waxing-on about how no one would know more about appropriate military strategy than the generals who were fighting the war.  Well. . . we all know how that one turned out, don't we?  Fifty-nine thousand dead and missing brave young American men and women, untold losses and suffering inflicted on the people of Vietnam, and within weeks after our hasty departure, Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Oh yeah, don't forget McNamara's mea culpa, "The Fog of War," where he matter of factly states that he got things wrong!

Turns out that the soldier on the ground and the Pentagon experts are often the worst people to be consulted about overall strategy, especially when it involves nation building, as was the case in Vietnam and is now the case in Afghanistan.  Remember our moist revered president, Abraham Lincoln?  He knew from the outset how to win the Civil War, but he spent over two years following the advice of one incompetent general after another, until he and Secretary of War Stanton found someone who would carry out his plan.  It took tremendous courage for Lincoln to buck the West Point establishment, but he did it and now has a really cool personal monument in Washington, and another in South Dakota.  Then there was President Truman in Korea.  The Military establishment in the Pentagon was pushing for him to adopt the strategy of another legendary military hero, Douglas MacArthur. The original "Big Mac" was calling for a nuclear attack in Manchuria and all out war with China as the way forward in the Korean War.  Hey, that would have worked out really well, World War Three!  Before the mushroom clouds had stopped glowing in northern China, the Soviets would have invaded western Europe and well, more work for the "Greatest Generation!"

So now it is President Obama's turn.  While we are all worrying about the state of our economy and the pending healthcare reform legislation, the president is about to make a series of decisions that may have consequences for our country deep into the 21st century.  Once again, the same old saber-rattling voices are clamoring for more troops as the only viable answer in Afghanistan.  And once again, those very same voices are warning us that only professional soldiers know what is best.  Hmm, it seems to me that when our Constitution was adopted, we created a political system where top level policy and strategy was determined by elected officials, not by economic, social, or military elites.

I have great respect for the opinions of General McChrystal, but they are just that, opinions. Further, they are based on years of training as an Army officer, not a diplomat.  Granted,  President Obama needs to listen carefully to the general's military advice, but he also needs to heed the political advice from those who see the world from a different perspective. On the other hand, I have no respect for those Beltway Warriors, and right wing pundits who are so damned eager to send other people's children off to war.  Perhaps I would feel differently if we still had a lottery-driven draft, and the war hawks actually stood to lose some of the their own children in this war.  But then, if we still had a draft, my guess is that we would be long gone from Afghanistan. . . . Funny, but I do not remember anyone named Bush, Clinton, Chaney, Gore, Reagan, Limbaugh, or Beck in my Basic Training company at Fort Lewis back in '67.  But then, I am getting old, and maybe I just forgot those guys.

What Happened To The "CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN?"

Does anyone besides me remember the night of the presidential election of 2008?  It seems like ages ago when Barack Obama walked out to address the huge crowd gathered in Grant Park in Chicago and once again promised to deliver "change we can believe in."  More remarkable to me than his inspiring speech was the look of joy, pride, and about-to-be-realized hope on the faces of those who came to hear him speak.  While watching the events of that populist pageant unfold, it came to me that I had not felt like that about a political figure in forty years.

 In 1968, a year away from being old enough to vote, I was an active participant in the presidential election campaign of Robert Kennedy.  But unlike so much during that horrible year, my dreams for our country were devastated by an assassin's bullets.  My dreams were not dead, but they were in a state of suspended animation for quite some time, until Barack Obama found a way to revive them.  Finally, after so many disappointments, after so many false progressive prophets, I was sure that it was finally our time.  After all, the Democratic Party scored huge gains in the Senate and House in the 2008 election, as well as winning back the presidency, and I was sure that we would now see the final touches applied to the unfinished work of the patriarchs of modern progressivism, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson.  What began in the depths of the Great Depression as the New Deal, followed by the social reforms of Kennedy's New Frontier and Johnson's Great Society, would surely be completed by the progressive agenda laid out by Barack Obama in his campaign for the presidency.

But something kept gnawing at the back of my conscious mind.  Something that would not abate, even while so much of me was caught up in the joy of that incredible November night. I kept seeing this image of the all but forgotten "fringe" candidate of the progressive left, Ralph Nader. I remembered the evening prior to the beginning of the Democratic National Convention, when he was being interviewed by Jim Lehrer on PBS's The News Hour. By then, Nader was no longer taken seriously by most of the media, so his TV time had been reduced to an occasional footnote on PBS, or a late night conversation on CSPAN.  Both of which, for American pop culture, are the national media equivalence to a near-death experience.  

Lehrer, dropping his usual tranquil style, bored-in and challenged Nader to explain why anyone should still take his candidacy seriously. Without missing a beat, Nader fired back, "because there is no substantive difference between Obama and McCain, nor between the Democrats or the Republicans." Pressed by Jim Lehrer to justify that comment, Nader offered this simple fact: most of the money raised by both major parties during the campaign of 2008 came from the economic elites running America's manufacturing, insurance, banking, and, communications industries.  And those people like things just the way they are.  Raising his voice, as if that would make any more of us listen, Nader told Lehrer that the last thing the United States needed was another president and another Congress more beholden to the boardrooms of our country than to the living rooms.  He concluded with a prophetic warning that we would see no fundamental change in any of our policies or programs as long as corporations financed American political campaigns.

Now it looks as though he may have been right.  Last week Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, read the riot act to sixty progressive Democratic members of the House, who have been criticizing the president for seemingly backing off on support for the public option in the healthcare bill.  Rather than assuring the progressives that Obama is with them, Emanuel warned them that if they did not back off, all Democrats might lose some campaign funding for the 2010 election cycle.  So there it is, seven months into the Obama presidency and "Change we can believe in," is looking more like "change the fat cats can live with."

In an earlier rant I called for an amendment to the Constitution to eliminate private funding for all political campaigns.  I still believe that is ultimately the way to go, if we ever really want a government that represents the people instead of the stockholders.  But that is a long and arduous process and there may be an easier way.  Maybe it is time that we progressives do what many centrists have been doing for the last twenty years.  But instead of becoming political independents, like they did, perhaps we should organize our own political party.  Let the Blue Dogs have the Democratic Party, and let's see how well they do without us.  It takes a majority in both houses of Congress to pass a bill and instead of trying to appease those on the right to get a health reform bill, how about we stand our ground and fight this time.

Perhaps losing is not the worst thing that could happen. If at the end of the day there is no public option for health insurance, there is no plan to cover the forty million Americans without health insurance, there is no robust federal regulatory process to rein in the insurance companies, then who cares if a bill passes?  Better we lose fighting for what is right than let the corporate jackals and their political toadies win with a meaningless piece of legislation, gutted of any real reforms.  After all, this fight should be about morality and justice, not politics and money.  Here is an idea, let's make Ted Kennedy's forty-seven year struggle for a compassionate and caring society a reality, rather than just another political slogan. Wouldn't that be a more fitting tribute to his memory than a marble headstone in Arlington? Instead of making placards with swastikas on them, like the fools on the far right, let's write our representatives in Congress and the President and press for the kind of change we all voted for in November.

In The Beginning, There Was The Word!

Anyone who doubts the power of the spoken word, need look no further than the ongoing debate over health care reform.  For instance, many elderly Americans are viscerally angry about the perception that the bills working their way through Congress will result in more "government" control over the management of their health care options.  At one of the recent Congressional "Town Halls," an irate senior shouted at his Representative, "You better keep your government hands off my Medicare!" When told by the Congressman that Medicare was indeed a government run program, the old man responded by calling his representative a liar.  Hello!

So what is going on here? Instead of pining over the lack of policy-savviness that has all but taken over this debate, perhaps the solons of the Potomac should have been more concerned about language than legislation.  Like it or not, words matter!  For instance, what if the term "Expanded Medicare Program" had been used instead of "Public Option?"  Nowhere in any of the healthcare reform proposals before Congress has there been a proposal to "socialize" American medicine.  But when a term like "public" is used as a label, it is no wonder that many among us think immediately of "government-run."  In a response to an earlier posting, one of my readers railed against my support of the healthcare reform plan, stating that as a soldier, he was well aware of how the government runs healthcare and that he wants nothing to do with it!  Too bad he does not realize that the reform package before Congress does not call for a government run healthcare delivery system.  But can you blame him?  The rhetoric used to both label and promote the plan are confusing at best, and downright misleading at worst. Medicare is a government funding program, not a government healthcare delivery program.  The reason that Medicare recipients are so happy with this "government" program, is that they get to choose all their own "private" health care providers.  No one, and I mean no one in a private HMO (insurance company program) gets that kind of choice.  If you belong to Blue Cross, you can only go to a Blue Cross approved doctor, no exceptions! Oh yeah, and if you get real sick, Blue Cross has the legal right to drop you, Medicare does not.

The very term, "Healthcare Reform Bill" is itself a poor title for what is actually going on.  From the outset, the legislation should have been called what it really is, a health insurance reform bill.  Changes in healthcare delivery are not on the table.  What is being debated in Congress are bills that change the way health insurance companies do business.  Is there anyone in this country, other than the CEO of Aetna Insurance Company who likes the way we pay for healthcare?  The answer is yes, anyone who holds health insurance company stock, as the current system is incredibly profitable. . . for Wall Street, not for Main Street!

Of course, clarifying the language will not silence all the critics of reform.  The crazies and profiteers will continue to amp-up their pin-headed followers with phrases like "death panels," and "socialism."   Wouldn't it be nice if the calm center of our political universe could clearly understand what is actually being proposed? If we could take those Americans out of the current ruckus, then only Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and their foil-cap wearing toadies would be left. That may, however, be too much to hope for, because one thing I do know is that rhetorical clarity and politician-initiated jargon have never been "fellow travelers."

President Obama, It Is Time For A Little FDR!

In reference to the previous rant, "Democracy in Peril," I think I may have discovered four phenomena that have led to all the irrational behavior on the part of many of our citizens. First, I believe that a sizable portion of the population is policy-ignorant. Notice I did not say stupid, I said ignorant. People who simply do not know something are ignorant of the facts. People who are given a reasonable explanation of those facts, and still do not know are stupid. People who do know, after being informed, and persist in ignorant behavior are liars.

Regarding the debate (which may be too civilized a word for what is actually transpiring) over health care reform, an uninformed citizen may not know that there is no provision in any of the bills in Congress to create a government "Death Panel," whose job it is supposedly going to be to decide if elderly Americans get care or are allowed to die. That rumor was started on the floor of the House by Minority Leader, John Boener in a blatantly irresponsible speech, and later trumpeted by the queen of the nutballs, Sarah Palin, on her Facebook page. Anyone who cares to look will find that the only thing in the bill that is even remotely akin to euthanizing granny is a reimbursement schedule for Medicare physicians who counsel their patients on end of life issues. Further, the bill stipulates that the patient, not the physician, must initiate the discussion. Right now, private insurnace companies and Medicare will not cover the cost of a doctor's visit for this kind of a discussion. In fact, most Americans who can afford it, usually have this discussion with an attorney while drawing up documents like living trusts. I know, I went through this with my mother and it cost just under $5,000 to make sure my mom's wishes about end of life care would be honored. It would have been wonderful to have been able to have that discussion with her primary care physician instead of n attorney. Does anyone really believe that AARP and the AMA would support a bill that did what John Boener and Sarah Palin are claiming?

The second cause of so much of the yelling and screaming going on at Congressional town halls is fear. During his inaugural address in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt told the American people that, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." A teaspoonful of FDR would be a perfect elixir for so much of what ails us today. Leaving out the truly crazy, like the Obama "birthers," rational people under great stress can act, well, irrational. Since September 11, 2001, the American people have had to face the fact that they are not impervious to peril. Hurricane Katrina and the government's pathetic response did not help. Add to that, the never-ending war in the Middle East, uncontrollable fluctuations in energy prices, and of course the disastrous state of the American economy, and one could not find a more fertile ground for fear.

Before FDR ushered in what came to be known as the New Deal, he took the time to reassure the American people that he and his team were on the job and that all would again be well. For example, before the passage of the Glass-Steagall Act, which created the FDIC and reformed America's banks, FDR called for a "Bank Holiday" to slow down the panic withdrawals that were wiping out our financial institutions. Roosevelt, who conquered fear in his personal life while battling polio, understood that no government program, no matter how well crafted could succeed if panic rather than reason governed people's behavior. Under this much stress, a normally reasonable people can succumb to the rantings of demagogues. Is there any other way to explain how the master of factless hyperbole, Rush Limbaugh, can get away with calling President Obama a Nazi?

For the last eight years the American people have been bombarded with one body blow after another, while an incompetent leadership team in Washington performed so badly that our collective fear has been exacerbated, rather than dampened. But it takes more than ignorance and fear to mobilize people into raging mobs. A willing and enthusiastic partner in fanning the flames of irrational behavior has been the media. As far back as the 1890s, newspaper moguls like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer discovered they could sell more papers by sensationalizing stories, or out and out lying, rather than merely reporting events truthfully. Without a full-frontal lie about the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, the Spanish American War might never have been fought.

Following this journalistic ploy, today's major electronic news outlets have been leading night after night with visual images of members of Congress being verbally assaulted and threatened by irrational citizens. Little or nothing is said about the veracity of the mobs' accusations, and even less time is given over to the fact that a significant majority of the American people still support health care reform. Instead, the visceral images are poured on, as the networks reap the profits from higher ratings. Responsible journalism, which was never profitable for the networks, has given way to "Oprahism" and become fat with advertising cash with their new philosophy of "Shock and Awe." So instead of leading with a fact like, the American Association of Retired Persons, endorses health care reform, Brian, Katie, and Charley,the Moe Larry and Curly of network news, lead with a Facebook rant from Sarah Palin on "Death Panels!" Could anyone over fifty even imagine Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley wallowing in that slime?

Finally, a significant portion of the blame for all this must be laid at the front door of the White House. Rather than articulating and promoting a clear plan for reform, the Obama team decided to leave it up to Congress to come up with a plan. Say What? So far we have at least four different bills floating around in the House and Senate, and no one really knows what they contain. The president keeps talking about a health care reform package, but he cannot definitively tell us what any of the specifics are. Thus, the crazies get to make up whatever they want. And instead of promoting the elements of a specific plan, the president is spending his time warding off attacks from the lunatic fringe.

As a former professor of Constitutional law, President Obama should be quite familiar with Article Two, Section Three of our founding document, which states, "He (the President) may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses, or either of them." And if this is not an extraordinary occasion, then none will ever exist. So, Mr. President, call the Congress back into session, present them with a clearly articulated piece of health care reform legislation, use the "Bully Pulpit" to explain your plan to the American people and pressure the Congress to pass the bill. Then in a magnificent White House ceremony, befitting this monumental piece of legislation, sign it into law. Then you can move on to one of the hundreds of other pressing issues facing your administration. In other words, stop reading about Abe Lincoln for awhile, and start acting a bit more like Franklin Roosevelt.

Democracy in Peril

The proverbial straw has been placed on this writer's camel's back. For more than thirty years I have watched as the tone of American political and social discourse has deteriorated into this week's mindless screaming and yelling directed at members of Congress trying to host constituent town meetings to discuss impending health care reform legislation. Perhaps even worse than the paranoid anger, was the outright ignorance of many in the protesting mobs. My favorite example of out and out stupidity was the man in South Carolina who screamed at his Congressman to keep the government's hands off his Medicare. Say what?

Way back in 1787, when the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia to write a constitution for our fledgling nation, many, if not most of them were uncomfortable with the idea of making our new national government too democratic. Granted, these men represented a very elite segment of the population of the United States. Besides being economically well off, propertied, and formally educated, the fact that they could all read and write set them miles apart from the vast majority of the people they were claiming to represent. A number of respected historians and political scientists, like Charles Beard, noting these facts, have concluded that the aim of the Founders was to create a national government less interested in equality and democratic institutions, but dedicated instead, to perpetuating the wealth and holdings of a burgeoning American aristocracy.

However, there may have been more to all this than simple self-interest. Since these men were almost all schooled in the classics of western civilization, the self-inflicted demise of Athenian democracy could not have escaped them. Indeed, one need look no further than James Madison's and Alexander Hamilton's writings in The Federalist Papers, to find plenty of warnings about the dangers of "the wrath of the majority." Too much government, they argued, in the hands of people unskilled in governing ultimately leads to "mobocracy," rather than improving democracy. Madison argued that democracy fails when reasonable discourse between individuals with legitimate differences is overwhelmed by passion, fear, and anger. In his 1954 novel, Sir William Golding wrote a chilling story about this very issue in Lord of the Flies.

Without a doubt, the phenomenon of passions overwhelming reason has been a fairly consistent theme in American history. From the Salem Witch Trials to the murder of Kansas abortionist Dr. George Tiller, the specter of Madison's "mobocracy" has always been with us. But over the past thirty years, it seems that the pace toward the failure of civil discourse has been accelerating in the United States. It is my contention that this acceleration is not due to an increase in the number of malevolent threats to our society, as they have always been present, but rather it is the result of changes in the manner in which information is disseminated.

Twenty-four hour cable TV, syndicated radio talk shows, streaming video on the Internet, have all blossomed in less than one generation. We are bombarded with more raw information than any people at any time in all of human history. But more than the sheer volume of electronic content, what is most troubling for the endurance of our democratic republic, is the inflammatory nature of so much of that content. Today, we do not have to share the same limited sources for news and information. Instead, many Americans are seeking out media sources that reinforce their own political and social biases, rather than using the media to broaden their understanding of complex issues. Even worse, the capitalists who own most of the media outlets have discovered that ratings, and therefore profits go up as the rhetoric gets more rabid. Watching a fool like Fox's Glenn Beck insanely ranting-on about how he would like to kill documentary film producer, Michael Moore, is reminiscent of 1930s' Nazi footage of Joseph Goebbels calling for the elimination of Germany's Jews.

Ironically, the Nazi propaganda machine could only reach its full potential after the fledgling democracy of the Weimar Republic had been destroyed. While in the United States, the high priests of broadcast lunacy operate under the complete protection of our democratic institutions. There was a time of course, when that was not so, and it wasn't all that long ago. Back in 1949, when network television was in its infancy, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a policy that came to be known as the Fairness Doctrine. Claiming that the airways used by radio and television were a public trust, the FCC mandated that broadcasters had to air contrasting points of view when they were presenting an editorial opinion on public issues. For example, if a network like Fox wanted to give over air time for the opinions of Sean Hannity on President Obama's economic stimulus package, they would have to provide time for someone like Bill Moyers to rebut Hannity's conclusions.

From 1949 until 1987, radio and television news organizations worked very hard to remain neutral on most issues, choosing to air factual information, supported by confirmed sources, rather than vocalize opinion. Anyone who cares to take the time to look can view archival recordings of Walter Cronkite reporting the news on CBS, or Chet Huntley on NBC. No ranting, no lunacy, and no huggy bear segments were ever allowed. Just straight reporting on the days news. If a network were to broadcast its opinion, it would always be clearly stated as such and time would be afforded parties with differing views. Perhaps the greatest example of this was Edward R. Murrow's scathing expose of the smear tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. McCarthy was afforded Murrow's time slot two weeks later to present his rebuttal. Can you even imagine Bill O'Reilly giving over his air-time for an entire show to allow someone like James Carville to challenge his opinions? Or on the other side, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, having to grant equal time to Rush Limbaugh? No, I don't think so either.

Of course, were the Fairness Doctrine still in place, many of the above mentioned pundits would not be on the air in the first place. The closest they would get to a microphone would be to ask a customer, "Would you like fries with that sir?"

So what happened? Remember the "Great Communicator?" When Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981, his administration launched an all out assault on government regulations. Any program limiting the private sector was bad, anything promoting private enterprise was good. One can draw a pretty clear line from the collapse of the American economy in 2008 back to the slash and burn de-regulation policies of the Reaganites in the 1980s. This was also the beginning of a great technological revolution in electronic communication. Broadband cable had just become commercially viable, giving birth to a whole new industry, cable TV. And that industry was vigorously lobbying the White House to get rid of, you guessed it, the Fairness Doctrine. The cable networks knew they could not compete with the news gathering capabilities of the major broadcast networks, as the costs would drive them into bankruptcy. They wanted, instead, to air the much cheaper slanted opinion and infotainment programming, without the FCC's interference. The goal was profit, not accuracy. And the way to get there, along with airing endless reruns of Lucy and Leave it to Beaver, was to turn news reporting into opinionated chit-chat.

The Congress, controlled by the Democrats in the 1980s, tried to head this off by passing legislation to turn the FCC's Fairness Doctrine into federal statutory law. The FCC regulations were always vulnerable to presidential executive orders countermanding them. But a federal law was totally immune to executive orders. In 1987, a bipartisan bill converting the Fairness Doctrine into law was passed by both houses of Congress, only to be vetoed by President Reagan. Once the president vetoed the bill, all Republican support melted away and the Fairness Doctrine was doomed. By 1988, President Reagan had appointed new commissioners to the FCC and no one even bothered to try and renew the doctrine.

So what was the result? Today, anyone with a microphone and a camera can be an "expert" on any subject. Add in the Internet and You Tube, and the crazies now run the assylum. Back in 1906 it took the combined will of the Progressives in Congress and the White House to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act, to finally rid the nation of the patent medicine industry. Millions of Americans were dying from phony cures, laced with opium and alcohol, and many more were suffering at the hands of a totally unregulated food processing industry. Under the new law, Congress created the Food and Drug Administration and very quickly medicines were safe and effective, and processed foods were no longer killing people. The debate over the passage of this law was passionate and fierce. Powerful interests lined up on both sides to lobby for their respective positions. In the end, Congress voted, the President signed, and the American people, both for and against, benefitted. In the end, our political system worked in 1906 because people agreed to disagree.

The very foundation of the pluralistic democracy created by our Constitution rests on two important, yet fragile foundations. First, our system cannot function if we replace civil discourse with the bullying tactics of fear and intimidation. From the outset, Americans have passionately disagreed over fundamental issues, yet we have allowed discussion and compromise to rule at the end of the day. Secondly, duly elected officials must be allowed to govern. Ours is a republic, not a direct democracy. No one is obligated to agree with those in power, but disagreement that turns into insurrection is tantamount to treason. One's opinions does not make one a patriot, no matter how loudly one shouts them. Upholding the principles laid down in our Constitution is the stuff of true patriotism.

In the decade of the 1850s, both of these foundational principles were ignored and the result was the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in all of American history. Do any of us really want to wander down that path again? I believe it is time for us to ratchet down the rhetoric and muffle the voices of extremism. Like it or not, our political system only works when it is governed from the center. As a firm believer in the First Amendment I do not want to set limits on free speech. But I do think it is time that we allow our opponents to be heard, and turn a deaf ear to those who just want to shout. A resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine might just do the trick. By the way, if you want to put a real scare into the purveyors of extremism, just mention those two words and watch them burst into an uncontrollable rage. So you tell me, why would any rational person be opposed to Fairness?

Time for a Real Hero on the Twenty!

Over the last few years, the Bureau of Engraving has radically changed American paper currency. Every bill now has numerous security devices built in to make effective counterfeiting all but impossible. Colors, watermarks, laser holograms, top secret chemicals, and a variety of other ingenious additions have brought our Federal Reserve Notes into the age of high technology. So how about changing one more thing. I have long felt that Andrew Jackson is the least deserving of our presidents to have his mug profiled on our twenty dollar bill. And now, his face is even bigger than before.

I just don't get it. Here was a guy who first became famous by fighting a battle three weeks after the war was over. Then he built his own private army of cut-throats and bushwhackers and slaughtered defenseless Indians, while violating the national sovereignty of another country. His political reputation was manufactured from a lie about him being a humble frontiersman in homespun buckskins, while he was the most prosperous slave-owning planter in Tennessee. Then, as president, Jackson, who swore to uphold the Constitution, ignored a decision by the Supreme Court and set in motion the worst case of American Indian genocide in the nineteenth century. By destroying the Bank of the United States, Jackson ushered in the worst economic depression that the country had seen since the Revolutionary War. And let us not forget his introduction of the political spoils system in America. More politically corrupt and incompetent individuals were placed in government jobs than in any other presidential administration, before or since.

How about this instead? Since we love those heroic general/presidents who find their way onto our coins and bills, I suggest that we get a real hero for the Twenty. Anyone remember Ike? You know, Dwight David Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of all European forces during World War II. As far as generals go, only George Washington can match up. Then there was Eisenhower the president. Hmm, let's see, he carefully managed international affairs during the height of the Cold War. He negotiated a settlement in the 1956 Suez War. He was responsible for the construction of the Interstate Highway system in America. And talk about taking his oath of office seriously, Eisenhower rigorously enforced the 1954 Brown V Board of Education decision, by sending federal troops to Little Rock in 1957, even though he disagreed with the Court's decision. Then, as he was leavingt office, Ike warned the American people about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex." Too bad we didn't take that more seriously.

And what did President Eisenhower get for all this? He got his profile on our tiniest coin, the dime, only to be removed for his boss during WWII, Franklin Roosevelt. Then he had a short stint on the dollar coin, which ended in 1978. Have you seen a dollar coin lately? It is now adorned by that great American hero, John Tyler. Who you might ask? Does this ring a bell, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too?" He only got to be president because "Tippecanoe," William Henry Harrison, died three weeks into his term. As president, Tyler was so despised, that he could not even get re-nominated by his party for a second term, and he is now on the new dollar coin.

President Eisenhower deserves better than this. Heck, even Grant has both a bill and a nice monument in New York City, while all Ike got was a cheesy statue in Topeka, Kansas. So I hope you will join me in writing to the powers that be in the Treasury Department and asking them to remove that puffed-up and sissified engraving of Jackson from our beloved twenty dollar bill, and replace that Tennessee dandy with a legitimate war hero, Dwight David Eisenhower. OK, I did gloss over a few things about Ike. Yes, it was Eisenhower who gave us Nixon as Vice President, and it was Eisenhower who thought creating two Vietnams was a good idea. Yeah, yeah, he never spoke out against Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare of the Fifties, and he stood by as Fidel Castro took control of Cuba, and when he had a chance to defend the honor of his old boss and friend, General George Marshall, he said. . . well, nothing. Oh yeah, there were those little screw-ups with the Russians, like a failure to help the Hungarians in 1956, Sputnik in 1957, and the U-2 fiasco in 1960. But with all that, he is still a better choice than Jackson, isn't he? No? Then can I interest anyone in Warren Harding? Herbert Hoover?

Thomas Hobbes May Have Been Right!

For the last week I have watched in utter disbelief as so many of my fellow citizens have decided that the worst thing we could do is to reform our failing health care system. As one major metropolitan newspaper after another dies, more and more of us are now taking our political marching orders from the crazies on cable TV, syndicated talk radio, or that great bastion of journalistic integrity, the Internet.

So let me see if I can get all this straight. President Obama is not an American citizen, he is, however, a practicing Muslim. The Federal Reserve System should be abolished, as it only exists to enrich Wall Street bankers. Concealed fire arms should now be allowed on college campuses and in bars, so we can all be safe. We need to keep the prison at Gauntanamo open, so no terrorists can set foot on American soil. Sarah Palin quit as the Governor of Alaska so she could better serve her fellow citizens. Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Michael J Fox fakes his Parkinsons and only shakes on TV. And my newest favorite, we do not actually need any health care reform, as the current system is working just fine. Who cares of we rank 37th in the world in health care delivery and 50th in life expectancy? I could go on but I am getting really depressed.

As far as I can tell, the great flaw in the logic of the men who wrote our founding documents, was that they were counting on those who came after them to be motivated by reasoned analysis, civil discourse, and an abiding concern for their fellow citizens. Instead we now eagerly wait for the likes of Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity to tell us what to think, and then march off to do battle. With all due respect to John Paul Jones, our newest motto ought to be, "Damn the facts, full speed ahead!" Don't confuse me with the truth, someone else already made-up my mind for me! Too bad that the Information Age. . . well, isn't!

TIME FOR 28?

In the summer of 1787, representatives of twelve of our thirteen states met in Philadelphia to revise the failing Articles of Confederation. Only a few years after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, it was becoming obvious that the loose confederation of independent states, created by the Second Continental Congress, could not guarantee the national sovereignty that the Founding Fathers had envisioned. Thirteen sovereign states could not agree on most of the important issues that in other countries were decided and resolved by a national government. In the critical areas of business and trade policy along with national defense, there was no consensus. From road building to the creation of a standardized currency, the states' on-going refusal to compromise, created the real risk of a failed nation-state. It was only after the Virginia militia was called out by George Washington to come to the aid of Massachusetts, during Shays's Rebellion, that twelve of the states finally and reluctantly agreed to send delegates to a convention to revise the failing Articles.

What emerged, to the chagrin of the vehemently states' rights crowd, was a brand new blueprint for governing the United States, the US Constitution. Gone was the absolute sovereignty of the states, replaced by a significantly stronger and ultimately supremely sovereign national government. The states retained only nominal independence under the new plan, but they were promised a more stable national economy, uniformity in interstate commerce, and a more robust system of national defense. For the next two years after the document was signed by the delegates and forwarded to the thirteen states for ratification, parties lined up for and against the new Constitution. The debate was quite spirited, especially in the key state of New York, but with the journalistic help of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, ratification was completed in 1789 and the United States of America was at last a political reality.

It did not take long, however, for critics of the new national government's power to point out some glaring defects within the Constitution. Although it indirectly referred to the rights of individual citizens, there were few clear statements guaranteeing them. The so-called father of the Constitution, James Madison, with the not-insignificant prodding of his Virginia neighbor and life-long friend, Thomas Jefferson, proposed a number of amendments be added to the document.

During the ratification process, two distinct quasi-parties emerged within the debate. Those who favored ratification called themselves Federalists, while those opposing ratification were called Anti-Federalists. Among the Anti-Federalist camp were some key Revolutionary War figures like Patrick Henry, George Mason, and of course, Jefferson. James Madison, realizing that ratification of the new Constitution was doomed without moderate Anti-Federalist support, came up with a plan. Using the English Bill of Rights and Enlightenment ideas already incorporated into a number of state constitutions, Madison offered them up collectively as a Bill of Rights, which was to be added to the Constitution, shortly after ratification.

As important as these rights came to be, it must be said that the process for incorporating them into the Constitution was equally significant. During the Philadelphia Convention, while those gifted delegates debated the mechanisms and procedures of the government they were creating, they were humble enough to also create a vehicle for later changing the document. Article V, which details the process for amending the Constitution, is a testament to the real genius of the Framers. For as marvelously flexible as our constitution may be, Madison and his colleagues realized that the future of their new republic, might hold challenges and opportunities unimaginable in 1787. Without Article V, an entirely new constitution would have had to be written and ratified to end slavery, directly elect senators, extend voting rights to ex-slaves and women, enact, then repeal prohibition, limit presidential terms, and to enfranchise those eighteen year old voters. But with this ingenious method for repair and improvement already built in, we have a two hundred twenty year old Constitution that works as well in the twenty-first century as it did in the eighteenth.

That said, it may be time to once again dust off Article V and add another amendment. Over the past three centuries, the US Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. The vast majority of those "fixes" have been to expand the rights and freedoms of American citizens. A few have been enacted to streamline or adjust the process of governing, and even fewer have been adopted to increase the power of the central government. What I am proposing falls, I fervently believe, within the most numerous category.

Prior to the invention of electronic mass media, particularly television, the cost of running for office was not prohibitively expensive. That all changed in the 1950s. President Eisenhower was the first national candidate to buy commercial time on national television to promote his 1952 candidacy for the presidency and he won in a landslide over his Democratic challenger, Adlai Stevenson. From then on, every presidential candidate, and now, every candidate running for any national, state, and even local office spends the bulk of his or her campaign money on media buys. In 2008, President Obama raised and spent over eight hundred million dollars to win a job that pays four hundred thousand dollars per year. John McCain, raised and spent a little under seven hundred million in a losing effort. In my state, financially bankrupt California, it costs over twenty million dollars to run for governor or for a seat in the US Senate, and between two and five million to campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives. Remember, a House seat must be contested every two years, so another two to five million must be found again and again.

So what, you might ask? As I see it there are some serious problems with this system. First, people of moderate income are all but eliminated as potential candidates. Without the ability to raise significant sums of cash to pay for TV and radio spots, it is next to impossible to run, let alone get elected. All one has to do is take a look at who serves in these offices and one can make a pretty good argument that today we may have more of an economically-elite aristocracy governing our country, rather than a representative democracy. Do any of us really believe that the members of Congress really feel the pain of this recession the way the rest of us do? Are any of them in danger of being denied health care if they are voted out of office? As I write this commentary, we are putting our hopes for major governmental reform in the hands of people who are a great deal more comfortable at a country club cocktail party, than they would be sharing a pizza with us at Round Table.

Secondly, and this is much more important than the first problem, is who is actually paying for these ridiculously expensive election campaigns? Even the rich guys who run for office prefer to fund-raise, rather than spend their own money. In 2004 both George W Bush and John Kerry raised record sums in their presidential campaigns, and they are both the products of abundant family wealth. And where, you might ask, does all that Contributed money come from? That's right, it comes from big corporations, institutions, trade-unions, lobbyists, and other economically fat interest groups that these politicians are supposed to be regulating. Beginning in 1995, the House of Representatives adopted a rule allowing for a three day legislative work week, so that the other two days could be used doing the real work of Congress. . . raising money. By the way, it is often at the above-mentioned cocktail parties where much of this campaign money changes hands. By the way, none of those wealthy power brokers eat at Round Table either.

Under Article One of the Constitution, the Congress was given three primary tasks. First and foremost legislators were mandated to make law. Secondly they were given the power to check the power of the other branches of government, and finally, they were assigned the tasks of regulation and oversight. The Framers were quite clear about who members of Congress were supposed to work for. Since 1789, the members of the House have worked directly for the electorate within their respective districts. The Senators, originally the employees of state legislatures, became directly accountable to the people with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. At least that is the theory.

Back in 1788, James Madison writing in Federalist #10, warned the American people of the dangers of "factions" within a democracy. Factions, he said, are organized groups of people who want to influence political power in order to promote their own private interests, rather than support what might be in the interest of the greater good. Hmmm. Remarkably, Madison wrote all that, way before the advent of American political parties, lobbyists, and TV commercials. He believed that as long as we all lived under a political system where no single faction (interest group) could disproportionately influence political outcomes, our democracy would flourish. Then came the money boys.

Let me cite a particular example to make my point. The first American presidential candidate to suggest that we adopt a national health care program to cover all Americans was Teddy Roosevelt in the campaign of 1912. Yeah, 1912. And yes, it was that Teddy, the one carved into Mount Rushmore. Then it was Harry Truman in 1948, Lyndon Johnson in 1965, Richard Nixon in 1974, Jimmy Carter in 1976, ted Kennedy in 1980, Bill Clinton in 1993, and now Barack Obama in 2009. And at every juncture, the financial powers, collectively called the "Health Care Industry," spent huge sums of money to defeat the proposals. Even now, when over seventy percent of Americans want a national health care plan, the monied interests are putting up a tremendous fight to block its passage. But how can they win, when we citizens have the vote? Come on, connect the dots, or should I say, connect the dollar bills and you can answer this question yourself. Or, try this for fun: pick up your phone and call your US Senator and ask to speak to her (California, remember). Trust me, you will not get through. But what if you are the president of the American Medical Association, or the chairman of Blue Cross, or the president of Catholic Health Care West, or the CEO of a major pharmaceutical manufacturer? Do you think those guys will be passed-off to a twenty one year old college intern? Once again, the cocktail party trumps pizza night!

Every interest group out there has well-paid lobbyists who do nothing else but promote their particular agendas before our duly elected law makers. And our law makers listen because these are the very same people who pay the lion's share of their campaign expenses. The only way you and I are going to get our elected officials back on our side is to get rid of the money. And the only way to do that, now that the US Supreme Court has said that campaign money is the same thing as political speech, and therefore constitutionally protected, is to add a new amendment.

Imagine how radically different Washington would be if we, the people (now there is a catchy phrase), made it unconstitutional to use any private money to finance a campaign for the presidency, the US Senate, or the House of Representatives. Instead of cash, what if candidates were required get enough voter signatures on a state-wide or national petition to qualify for a spot on the ballot? Then, what if all candidates got the same amount of money to run their respective campaigns, drawn from a tax-payer funded pool and controlled by an independent election commission? What if election TV time was free, and as with campaign money, every candidate on the ballot got the same amount of time? What would our republic look like if our elected officials actually worked for us? How much could they get done if they no longer had to fund-raise? And what if lobbyists could only provide information about their particular interests, but no money could be privately donated for any reason?

My fellow American citizens, this may be the very reason that the most celebrated class of patriots included Article V in our most cherished document, the United States Constitution. Two hundred and twenty years later, we could make our political system work for us, just like Madison and his patriot-posse had in mind. Remember, in many ways political power is like the physical prowess we all took for granted in our misspent youth. We have to use it or we could lose it.

If Truth Be Told,How Can You Really Tell?

Sadly, as much as I despised the presidency of Dubya, in truth it is way to soon to evaluate his time in office, let alone his legacy. Like so many of my peers, my deepest criticisms of him lie in two areas. The first is policy and governance. During his eight years in office I was almost completely opposed to his major policy agendas. Further, I found myself diametrically opposed to everyone of his major presidential appointments. From his cabinet to the US Supreme Court, I was dismayed by his deeply partisan choices. Not because I am anti-partisan, on the contrary as a radically left of center Democrat, I could not be more partisan. No, I opposed his choices because they all had one thing in common. . . they stood for political philosophies and policy agendas that I revile.

The second reason I was fervently anti-Bush, was because of his personal style. Whether it was an act (which I do not believe) to rally the right-wing base of his party, or some rich kid's latent desire to actually connect with common American culture, I felt that his bumbling, aw shucks, and syntax destroying rhetorical style ended up dummying down the office of the presidency. I was certain that this Billy-Bob act was in no small part, significantly responsible for America's lost prestige on the world stage. While the Limbaugh crowd could not get enough of Dubya's bible-thumping one liners, I was sickened by the pride he took in simplifying the most complex issues to statements like, "Bring em on," or "I'm the Decider!"

But the historian in me kept nagging in a soft but persistent whisper. . . you cannot really know yet. In truth it takes many years, if not decades, in order to evaluate the contributions of any American president. Like it or not, one must separate contemporary public opinion from historic significance. For example, most Americans have been falling all over themselves in praise of the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Yet, we now know that the seeds for the economic meltdown we are experiencing were sown by his enthusiastic demand for de-regulation of our major financial institutions. Bush I got blasted by those policies in the Savings and Loan crises of the late 80s. Further, the Wall Street as we know it today, did not exist prior to the "Reagan Revolution." De-regulation greased the skids for the likes of AIG, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers to run amok in speculating away the wealth of our country, while commerical banks like Citi and Bank of America were freed-up to dive deep into mortgage speculation. In the years to come, historians may not be as kind to President Reagan, as were so many of his contemporaries who were captivated by his public persona.

Likewise, the "Camelot" of the Kennedy presidency, with its energetic charisma and the personal appeal of the man himself, may not withstand the rigors of historic analysis. Everyone knows about the botched Bay of Pigs invasion and the heroic Cuban Missile Crisis, but we forget that JFK could not move Congress on any of his progressive domestic agendas. Further, Kennedy was reluctant to speak out for Civil Rights, fearing that he would lose the Democratic South in the election of 1964. Now that we are almost fifty years beyond that November day in 1963, we are less blinded by the personal appeal of the man and more inclined to see him within the context of his policy decisions. Without a doubt, much of what JFK has been credited with in the area of Civil Rights, belongs to Lyndon Johnson and not to Kennedy's so-called "Best and Brightest" team.

And then there is Jimmy Carter. For years his presidency has been condemned and ridiculed by many of his contemporaries. Yet, almost all of his predictions about energy, health care, terrorism, Palestine and Israel, and the state of our economy have been proven out. What most of us remember is the uncomfortable style that emerged from the Carter White House, and the way we rejected his warnings about the future. What we wanted was the flag-waving optimism of Ronald Reagan instead. Even if those policies would eventually come back to haunt us. Carter's great flaw may have been his belief that the American people really wanted to hear the truth, no matter how painful it might be. Alas, it is only historians and some theologians who find satisfaction in the truth. The rest of us simply want to have our beliefs and life-decisions validated by our leaders, whether or not those beliefs and life choices have been correct.

So. . . what about George W Bush? All I can say is that I am glad he is gone, and I believe we will be spending many years paying for the damage his presidency caused. His reckless, my way or the highway style of governance, was at best a public relations nightmare and at worst a damaging blow to our country. I believe this deeply and from all that I have read and witnessed over the last decade, I am sure I am right. But then there is that darned voice again, and if I am going to be completely honest, I must confess. . . I really do not know and only time will tell. Damn!

Huh? Part Two

Let me lead off with my own criticism of the Obama stimulus package. No one should be surprised that the economy is still tanking. First, it is taking far too long for the 787 billion dollars of the Obama plan to enter the economy. By the most optimistic accounts, it will be well into 2011 before all the money has been injected into our sagging national economy. Secondly, it does not take a Nobel laureate to be able to figure out that an economy that has lost more than three trillion dollars in wealth, investments, and jobs, will not be resuscitated by a less than one trillion dollar stimulus. In order to make his plan bi-partisan, a stupid idea from the get go, Obama watered down his request and what he got was no where near enough to end this recession. Now, facing a much more timid Congress, the president is going to have to ask for a great deal more money, or run the risk of a decade long, Japanese style recession.

That said, one wonders why House and Senate Republicans are on the attack against the whole idea of a federal stimulus plan. First, it was their runaway love affair with a completely de-regulated national economy that got us into this mess in the first place. With a little help from Bill Clinton in 1995, these economic geniuses gutted all our banking regulation laws, enacted a shameful tax cut for the rich, cut the funding for the SEC, and took massive amounts of campaign funding from the likes of hedge fund managers, Wall Street investment bankers, and the mortgage securities industry. In other words, while worshiping at the altar of Alan Greenspan and Adam Smith, these stimulus nay-sayers gleefully rode our economy into the toilet.

And now what is their solution? Incredibly, it is more of the same that got us into this mess in the first place! Cut taxes, deregulate, and, I guess, to the poor, "let them eat cake." Sorry Marie, but I could not resist stealing your line. I guess these guys are really convinced that, like so many of their ardent supporters on the far right, none of the rest of us ever read American history. Just because they missed the lecture on the New Deal in History 101, it does not mean that the rest of us did. My God, even Ronald Reagan, patron saint of the born again right, admired FDR as a great president.

But that isn't the truly weird part. The real Twilight Zoney stuff being babbled into microphones these days is a Republican attempt to lay blame for the recession at the front door the Obama White House. Where were these guys when Dubya was celebrating the blessings of runaway capitalism. Did they miss the fact that their party took a two trillion dollar federal surplus in 2000 and magically turned it into a three trillion dollar federal deficit? Had they any of the decency they say us leftists are void of, rather than bemoaning the evils of federal spending, they would be supporting all attempts to repair the damage they have done.

Heck, even the Pope, not exactly known for his leftist thinking, issued an Encyclical entitled, Charity in Truth this last week in which he condemned western democracies for giving in to the powers of corporate greed. Benedict XVI then went on to admonish western political leaders to restructure their economies to create true welfare states where the poor and vulnerable would be cared for, while at the same time instituting new and stringent regulations on private capital.

Hey if the Vatican has finally figured this out, why can't all those members of the Flat Earth party in Congress? Or maybe they all missed that sermon last week at the Fox News Cathedral.

That Darned Comma!

As we approach the 4th of July, I thought it would be a good time to investigate the Holy Grail of the NRA, the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution. But first, so I do not come off as just another anti-gun extremist, I have no problem with hunters and their firearms. In fact, I am not sure I have any real problems with people who feel compelled to keep a firearm for home protection. That said, I do have a problem with the proliferation of semi-automatic assault weapons and their attending armor piercing ammunition. One can only wonder why so many citizens of the most powerful country in the world seem to be so paranoid about perceived enemies.

Since the election of Barrack Obama, gun manufacturers in the United States have enjoyed all time record sales. And the guns that are fueling these sales are not hunting rifles, bird hunting shot guns or even revolvers. Instead they are military-like lethal assault weapons, like AR 15s, AK 47s, machine pistols, and the ever popular street howitzer, the short barreled shot gun. In no other modern democracy can weapons like these be purchased by the general public. Not even in Israel can a citizen buy such a weapon, as they are exclusively reserved for members of the IDF (Israeli Defense Force).

So what gives? Avoiding if I may, the urge to discuss the psychological reasons for people who feel so threatened, or powerless, that they can only find solace in the cold caress of blue steel and rifled barrels, I would like to address the legality of armed America. Right now a number of states have eliminated or are about to eliminate most restrictions on citizens packing concealed weapons, and some like Tennessee and Arizona are allowing people to bring these guns into bars and nightclubs. Now there is a great idea. Do any of these mentally challenged legislators not see that the combination of twenty or thirty something males, soaking in testosterone, mixing alcohol, their libidos, and firearms is a guaranteed prescription for OK Corral-like mayhem? Are these spineless morons that afraid of the National Rifle Association?

The answer to the above question is an obvious and resounding "YES." Who knows where all this will end? Maybe we can all start buying Kevlar body armor for our kids and bullet proof glass for our cars. Care to wager on how soon we are going to see a rash of road rage shoot-outs on our freeways?

But, as so often happens. . . I digress. The real purpose of this piece on our most patriotic day, is to take a close look at the Second Amendment. I will address the gun-toting crazies another time. Every flag-waving, anthem-singing, firecracker-throwing, red-blooded and true blue American can at least paraphrase the second half of our most controversial constitutional amendment. But for the record, let us quote directly, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Pretty much sums things up right? Well, maybe not. It turns out that this oft quoted phrase doe not stand alone, indeed, it is a dependent clause supporting a much less famous grammatical subject. The entire amendment reads: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Huh?

It seems that the right to bear arms is conditional upon the necessity of the state to maintain a "well-regulated" militia, whatever that is. And why, might you ask is this "sacred' right conditional? Well, it turns out that we can find our answer in the rules of standard American English punctuation and grammar. Dead center in the Second Amendment is a comma. And as we all learned back in elementary school, a comma is used to separate dependent clauses in a sentence. Note the word "dependent." Had Jefferson, Madison, et al wanted to create an unconditional right to pack heat, they would have used a semi-colon, rather than a comma. For a semi-colon is used to separate independent clauses within the same sentence and the "keep and bear arms" segment would in fact be inviolate. But instead, the authors of the Bill of Rights chose to attach this conditional right to the necessity of a sovereign state to maintain a militia.

In the 1790s when this amendment was ratified, militias in every state were made up of bands of citizens, who would be called on in times of emergencies to act as soldiers in a temporary armies. Further, these militia-men were bound to bring their own weapons to the drilling field, as no state could afford to pay for the guns of the militiamen. Thus the need for a right to bear arms. But today, every state in the union has a more formal "well-regulated militia," called the National Guard. Thus, if we interpret the Constitution literally, as most political conservatives demand, the only people among us with a guaranteed right to possess firearms are members of our respective state's National Guard units. But unlike the late 18th century, today's militia-men (and now women) no longer have to take down "Old Betsy" from above the family hearth, and report for weekend training. Today all the weapons are provided by we tax payers, thus rendering the "dependent" clause of the Second Amendment obsolete.

Hey, don't blame me, I didn't write the Bill of Rights, but I do know how to read and I do understand the basic rules of English grammar and punctuation. So as you head out to the back yard with your hot dogs, potato salad, and pre-packaged fireworks to celebrate Independence Day, how about a shout out to the Bill of Rights. All those true American patriots in favor of standing up for our Constitution and banning those assault weapons raise your hand!

NObamamania for Me

OK, I will admit it up front, I was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama in the election campaign of 2008. I found this well-educated and articulate young man to be what our country needed most after the God, Greed, and Goober years of George W. Bush. Further, it seemed to me that we were in desperate need of a post- Baby Boomer voice in the White House. Someone who could speak to us beyond the harsh rhetoric and polarizing politics of those of us marked by Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, the Great Society and Watergate. Granted, Barack Obama is well versed in those agendas, but he is not of those agendas, and I held out the hope that he could move ahead on the issues most important to me, without alienating those who held other perspectives.

You see, as much as I revile the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, fundamentalist groups like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, the talking pin heads of Fox News, and all the others I like to label as flat-earthers, I must admit I, am partially to blame for their very existence. As a "card carrying" member of the liberal left, I and my fellow-travellers (as we were labeled by the McCarthyites of the 1950s) scared the beejesus out of our moderately conservative neighbors, until they found refuge in the Reagan Revolution and the Moral Majority. And it wasn't long before the right wing demagogues began to really cash in on the fears of their growing congregations, by constantly feeding the fires of intolerance.

For almost forty years, we on the left have watched most of our most cherished reform ideas and programs suffer tremendously at the hands of those who claimed to be the true bastions of the American way. We saw greed and unbridled capitalism turned loose as government regulation was labeled "socialist." We watched a president take us to war, claiming he was doing God's work in a new "crusade" against evil. We even had to gag down the bitter pill of the word "liberal"being transformed into an expletive by Opiate besotted clowns on right wing talk radio. It got so bad that some of our most revered liberal leaders began referring to themselves as "progressive," in order to avoid the tag of the hated "L" word.

But then came that previously mentioned "crusade" against evil and the invasion of Iraq. Four years later, there were no weapons of mass destruction, no link to Al Qaeda, and thousands of dead young American soldiers. Then, as if on a Biblical cue, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, and we all got a front row TV seat to just how badly the faith-based White House could mismanage a real national disaster. Thus, the door was opened for the Democrats to take control of every elective body in our national government. Enter Barrack Obama and exit the Bush crowd.

So what did we get? For the first three months, the Obama administration spent almost all of its time trying to resuscitate the nation's economy. After years of Republican, and Democratic, I am sorry to say, deregulation and poor oversight, the Wall Street Bankers and hedge fund managers almost destroyed the world's financial systems. Since the 1980s, greed was the order of the day, and avarice lobbied Washington to look the other way. In the last days of the Bush administration, even die-hard Republican capitalists knew that only through a massive federal bail-out, could our economy keep from completely melting down. Thus, between Henry Paulson, Ben Vernanke at the Fed, and the incoming Obama intelligentsia, the TARP program plus a Trillion dollar stimulus package were rushed through Congress and economic armageddon was narrowly avoided, or so the story goes.

But along the way a very disturbing trend began to develop in the Obama White House. Promoting himself in the last days of the 2008 campaign as the post-partisan candidate, President Obama decided to try and make this promise a reality (unlike many other promises he has quietly shelved since January 20). Instead of hammering out real financial reforms, which would of course get no Republican support, the president softened if not outright eliminated many of his core promises. Take for example his demand for strict regulations on executive compensation. . . gone. Or how about the demand that banks are going to be required to restructure all those sub prime loans that caused the economic crisis in the first place? Gone.

OK, I hear the argument bubbling up from all the political realists out there and it goes something like this. . . there is a big difference between governing and campaigning. Oh really, then why were Republicans able to jam all their right wing agendas through Congress during the Bush years? The answer is simple. George W was committed more to his agenda than he was to building consensus. His born-again political commandos did not give a damn about soothing the feathers of any Democrats, since his party controlled both the House and the Senate. And as much as it pains me to say this, the "Dubya" crowd was much more politically savvy about how Washington works than the Obamanistas are. Plus, they reveled, rather than shrank when the opposition cried foul.

Barrack Obama, seems to be more concerned with being seen as a great healer and conciliator, rather than a hardcore political operative. It seems that everything is on the table with his luke-warm legislative agenda. Just look at his health care reform program? Why in the hell should any truly progressive politician give a damn about insurance companies losing money? Where did the single-payer option go that he called for when running for a seat in the Senate in 2004? And why do lobbyists, you remember Obama's sworn enemies, get a seat at the table?

I believe there are two answers here. First, Barrack Obama spent so little time in the Senate that he is woefully under prepared to play the kind of legislative hardball necessary to ram a bill through to final passage. Would that he would have read some of Doris Kearns Goodwin's other books, beyond the Abe Lincoln love fest of Team of Rivals. Mr. President, may I recommend, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 1976? In it Kearns Goodwin writes about how LBJ spent thirty plus years as a United States Senator and knew all there was to know about the legislative process before he became president. After the election of 1960, President Kennedy's entire domestic package was stalled in Congress until his death in 1963. Once in office, the wheeler dealer Johnson successfully pushed through all of Kennedy's bills but added a number of his own, collectively labeled the Great Society. Kennedy had no hope of breaking the solid segregationist Democratic South with any kind of civil rights legislation. Lyndon Johnson broke the back of that impregnable body and the country got the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, The Voting Rights Bill of 1965, and the War on Poverty. Anyone care to give up their Medicare rights?

Johnson, unlike President Obama and the semi-fictitious Lincoln in Kearns Goodwin's latest work, did not give a damn about consensus or camaraderie. But more importantly, Lyndon Johnson paid his dues in Congress and had earned many IOUs from the movers and shakers on Capitol Hill. Obama never paid any dues, and seems almost helpless in getting the Democrats in the House or Senate to play ball. Both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden warned the American people about this back during the Democratic primaries, but when they fell by the way, no one paid much attention to the realities of governing. We were all too caught up in Obamamania.

Secondly, and to this writer, much more importantly, President Obama is basking in his own cult phenomenon. Like John Kennedy before him, Obama is enjoying an incredible level of personal appeal. His popularity numbers are hovering around seventy percent, which if true, would make him the most popular president ever. . . at least for now. But personal popularity among the masses does not translate automatically into political capital in Washington. Unless he is able, and more importantly, willing to use the bully pulpit on Capitol Hill, he will never see his legislative agenda get passed. If, on the other hand, he is more worried about being liked than effectively governing, then he is doing just fine.

One possibility that might work for President Obama, one that JFK absolutely refused to employ, would be to let his Vice President run with his legislative agenda. Joe Biden, like Lyndon Johnson, made his political bones in the US Senate and he knows how to get things done. It seems that President Obama has a much better relationship with Biden than Kennedy ever did with Johnson, and Biden has nothing to lose by bending a few well-placed arms, or as Johnson called it, "pressing the flesh." It does not seem that Barrack Obama is at all interested in moving out of his pop culture role, so few other choices remain. Even though he claims that Lincoln is his presidential role model, President Obama runs the risk of being another James Monroe; well liked, elected twice, but very little in the way of a presidential legacy. And don't give me any of the that nonsense about the Monroe Doctrine. That little gem was the policy brainchild of Monroe's curmudgeonly Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams.