Fewer Rivals, Please

Much is being made of President-Elect Obama's admiration for Abraham Lincoln's Team of Rivals approach towards piecing together an administration.  And, judging by his early actions, with good reason.  He's moving deliberately, so most names are speculative at this point, but here's a look at the current playing field:

Chief of Staff -- Rep. Rahm Emanuel, from Illinois.  While an extremely close friend of Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, make no mistake about it, he is a Clinton man from way back.  His first taste of politics at the national level was working for Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and he served as a senior advisor in the Clinton White House from 1993-98.  An interesting choice, he challenges the bipartisan meme of Obama's White House due to his cutthroat Democratic bona fides.  Conservatives are howling and the netroots are grumbling as well.

Secretary of Defense -- the consensus seems to be that he will keep Bush's current SOD, Robert Gates, on for at least a year, both as a reward for a job generally accepted as well done in Iraq and as a bipartisan aide to a transition to more of an emphasis on the mess in Afghanistan.  There has been some buzz, slightly abated now, that Sam Nunn, last spotted heading back to Georgia in 1997 as he retired from his senate seat citing a "lack of zest and enthusiasm," was a dark horse possibility.

Secretary of State -- less predictable than a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey and more fun than a pinata party.  Chief party rival Hillary Clinton is the nom de jour.  Other than her very public differences of opinion over foreign policy with Obama, she faces the same difficulties being confirmed in the face of Bill Clinton's aversion to vetting as she did when being considered as a potential vice-president.  (I wonder if she ever sits up at night, over a Crown Royal nightcap, while Bill is jetting to some Arab Emirate on Ron Burkle's Boeing 757 known as "Air F*#k One," for staggeringly obvious reasons, and considers just how much being married to the Big Dog complicates her life.)  Republicans Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar's names are bandied about also as candidates (for both State and Defense) to trip across the Obama Footbridge of Peace being constructed over the center aisle of the U.S. Senate.  

Secretary of Treasury -- former SOT Lawrence Summers is on the shortest of lists, as is former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.  While Summers has practically made a career out of insulting various core Democratic constituencies since leaving public office, it's hard to deny that he is a brilliant economist and comfortable thinking outside the box, a talent obviously in demand these days.  As for Volcker, gimme a break.  Jimmy Carter appointed him Fed Chair.  He's eighty-one years old!  He actually remembers the last time the economy was this bad.  All due respect (and he has certainly earned it), but I'm not sure the focus and energy that the current crisis will demand is the ideal fit for an octogenarian. 

Vice President Biden's Chief of Staff --  Ron Klain, Al Gore's chief of staff when he held the office.

White House Counsel -- Greg Craig, best known for helping Bill Clinton beat the rap at his 1998 impeachment hearings.  He has continued as close advisor to both of the Clintons.

I don't know about you, but as one who supported Obama based upon the campaign he ran and the promises he made, I'm about ready for some names that A)aren't joined at the hip to one or both of the Clintons, B)don't sit with conservative Republicans at Senate picnics or, C)are not hard-wired into the Washington power establishment.  I mean, the only group whose performance over the past few years rivals the incompetence and lack of integrity exhibited by Bush and the Republicans is the Democratic Congress.  

Obama promised, among other things, an approach in Washington that would be as fresh as it was bold.  No more re-treads.  Well, to channel a Clinton greatest hit, I suppose it depends upon what the definition of "retread" is, but most of the names listed above are awfully familiar.  

I'd like to see Samantha Power get some attention for State.  She's a realist -- she stated all the way back in March, while working for the Obama campaign, that sixteen months for an Iraq withdrawal was a "best case scenario" that he would revisit if elected.  She was forced to resign after speaking the truth about Hillary Clinton's campaign (that her level of deceit was unattractive) because she described her as a "monster," even though she told the interviewer that was off the record.  She won the Pulitzer Prize writing about genocide and was responsible for directing Obama's attention towards the atrocities in Darfur.  She would be a bold and fascinating choice.  

Obama met with vanquished presidential rival John McCain today.  The argument has been made that McCain won't relish continuing to serve in a diminished state with an increasingly minority party in the senate.  But it's hard to figure where he might fit in the Team of Rivals, were Obama so inclined.  Where do you put a flip-flopping Republican hawk who has declared a complete lack of respect for your experience and judgement along with a deep suspicion of your past associations, no matter how casual?  Come to think of it, I guess you sit him right next to Hillary. 

I can see only one realpolitik argument for finding a spot for McCain in the administration.  Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is reportedly being considered for Attorney General.  She would bring a fresh voice to Washington, and increase the cabinet's diversity at the same time.  However, she is in line to run against McCain for his Arizona senate seat in 2010 and there is some doubt that the Democrats could find anyone else to mount a substantive challenge against him.  It must be tempting to finish transitioning Arizona from red to blue (McCain only won 53.8% of the vote against Obama) with Napolitano snatching McCain's seat out from under him.  So maybe you leave her where she's at and offer the AG spot to someone like Eric Holder, who led Obama's V.P. search committee.

While attempting to predict the incoming administration is a bit of an old Washington chestnut, it makes for a more enjoyable parlor game than gathering around the television and watching the market fall on CNBC.  Besides, it's the only game in town for the next couple of months.  Unless you're putting together an over/under pool on how many more days until GM goes under.

Hang on.  How many cars does McCain own?  That's right, thirteen. 

Obama is said to be considering naming "a point person to lead efforts to help the distressed auto industry return to health."  It should obviously be someone who believes in the product.  Someone experienced in deal-making.  Preferably someone with a bit of a jingoist streak to keep him going through the dog days when he looks at the numbers and sees Japan is still kicking Detroit's ass.  Someone who puts country first and would be willing to spend most of this winter in Michigan rather than by a babbling brook in Sedona, Arizona.

The perfect choice to round out President Obama's Team of Rivals.

Car Czar -- John McCain.

Poor America

One debate down, two to go.  (I don't count Biden-Palin.  That's not a debate, that's vaudeville.)  Last week's first Obama-McCain debate was scheduled to cover foreign policy yet was dropped surreally into the middle of the nation's most pressing economic crisis since 1929.  I don't mean to suggest they should have switched topics but let's just say that Waziristan has never seemed farther away than it did last week while watching the Dow do its impression of a lead balloon.

McCain accused Obama of going through the entire debate without uttering the word, "victory."  Obama rebutted that McCain never used the phrase, "middle-class."  Both accurate points that, I suppose, say something about both campaigns and to whom they're speaking. 

Here's a word I haven't heard either of them say in quite some time:  

Poverty.

According to McClatchy Newspapers and the lastest census figures (2005), there are now thirty-seven million Americans living below the poverty line of $20,000 per year for a family of four, which is a thirty-two year high.  Forty-three percent of those, or sixteen million, Americans live in extreme, or deep, poverty.  Deep poverty is defined as a family of four making less than $9,903 per year, or half the amount of those living in your basic, run-of-the-mill, common everyday poverty.  The total of Americans living in deep poverty grew twenty-six percent from 2000-2005.   

Think about supporting a family of four on ten grand a year.  That's $200 a week.  $50 a head.  

$50 a week to cover the cost of a life in the world's richest country.  Where a Venti Latte at Starbucks costs $4.  You do the math.

Now, I'm no expert on monetary policy -- I buy a lottery ticket twice a week -- but I don't think $50 a week can get it done.  

We're facing economic Armageddon, or something approximating it.  From what I understand, they're going to start making me pay cash in restaurants pretty quick here.  Businesses, small and large, will be forced to close if they are unable to obtain the credit necessary to operate in today's economy.  Which means a whole lot more people making under, not only $20,000 a year, but under $9,903 as well.  

Deep poverty.

I'd like to hear the candidates talk to the impoverished.  I know the reason they don't.  Poor folks don't like to think of themselves as poor.  They prefer to be called "working-class" or "lower-middle-class."  Just as upper-middle-class people are quick to answer to "rich."  It's a big downer for everyone to consider the deprivations and hardships of being really, really poor.  It's difficult to sell the American Dream in Paragraph One and pivot to $50 a week in Paragraph Five.  Nobody wants to think about being poor.  It was Reagan's genius that he sold the fantasy that anyone could be rich to a bunch of poor bastards that had no chance, nada, of every sniffing the inside of a Mercedes.  Twice.  

But there's at least a reasonable chance that a whole bunch more of us are going to join the thirty-seven million Americans currently living in poverty.  The McClatchy analysis determined that fifty-eight percent of Americans will spend at least one year of their life in poverty.  One in three will succumb to deep poverty.  To quote Mark Rank, a professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis:

"It would appear that for most Americans the question is no longer if, but rather when, they will experience poverty.  In short, poverty has become a routine and unfortunate part of the American life course."

I'd like the candidates to address this catastrophic statistic in their next debate.  Not on their websites.  Not in a stump speech.  On national television, in front of tens of millions of Americans, many of whom, I'm sorry to say, are not middle-class.  They're poor.  They're not worried about their kids going to college, or retiring with dignity.  They're fighting to stay alive.

And that number is growing.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, the MegaMillions jackpot is $32 million tonite.  I gotta run.

Down and Dirty

The Dow dropped some five hundred points on Monday, losing 4.4% of its value between breakfast and high tea.  Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was snatched up by Bank of America and American International Group teetered on the brink of collapse.  Contrary to John McCain's initial reaction, the very fundamentals of our economy (the mortgage market, access to credit, pension holdings) were being buffeted by the winds of deregulation.

Thank God.

Yeah, my net worth fell from inconsequential to piddling yesterday but, as I often tell myself, it's only money.  I lost a pretty penny but, on the flip side of that coin, many people went all day without mentioning the name of Sarah Palin.

That has to be worth something.

The Wall Street story allowed the Obama campaign to focus on what this election needs to be about if he is to emerge victorious -- how failed Republican policies have created a nation that is considerably worse off than it was when the Clintons left office in 2000.  McCain applied the shovel to his own grave by first declaring our economy "fundamentally sound," before his handlers pushed him back out in front of cameras several hours later to muddle through a stack of cue cards explaining that, by "fundamentals," he meant the American workers, their work ethic and their values.  Which was, of course, nonsense.  Ridiculous.  A blatant lie.  

I've been of the opinion since McCain reacted so rashly to the spectacle of the Democratic Convention by plucking Palin from out of her tanning bed in the Great White North that the choice's bounce would have a short shelf-life.  He's too old, too Republican and too disinterested in domestic policy (especially economics) to get away with choosing a running mate who addresses none of his weaknesses and speaks to few Independents.  Throw in the near daily dose of Palin Drama -- pregnant daughter, Trooper Gate, the Bridge to Nowhere fiasco, her predictably erratic performance in her first major interview, her husband's history as an Alaskan secessionist, book banning, librarian firing, classmate hiring, etcetera, etcetera -- and the shine is coming off the Republican ticket before our very eyes.  I'm guessing November 4th looks a long way off to Team McCain right about now.

Speaking of the Bridge to Nowhere, her version of the story is as close to the truth as their campaign has come on an issue since their hook-up.  She claims she said, "Thanks but no thanks."  Well . .  . almost.  What she really said was, "Thanks" and then, much later, "No thanks."  By Team McCain standards, that makes her George Washington.

As for Obama, his brand has been losing its luster as well.  What started out as a pledge for a different kind of campaign has been inexorably dragged backwards towards the swamp of politics-as-usual.  He campaigned on the promise to accept public funding, thereby leading the charge to cleanse our electoral process of the influence of special interests, but he was ultimately unable to resist the lure of the huge financial advantage his fund-raising machine represented over the Republicans.  He initially agreed, in general terms, to a series of town-hall meetings with McCain only to flip-flop when he took a healthy lead in the early polls and was reminded of the old political rule that the leader debates as seldom as he can possibly get away with.  

For most politicians, these would be minor infractions.  After all, the game has been played this way forever.  Money is speech, we have a constitutional right to Free Speech, so collect as much money as possible, from whatever sources are available.  And never play to an opponent's strengths if it can be avoided.  McCain has always been a one trick campaign pony -- town hall meetings.  So, the conventional wisdom was, don't debate him using the town hall forum.

But Obama hasn't been selling himself as a conventional politician.  What made him special was his ability to inspire a belief in a new kind of politics.  Every time he resorts to politics-as-usual he cheapens his brand.  And every opportunity McCain has to accuse him of being afraid to go in front of the people with him is an opportunity lost for Obama to convince undecided voters that he is someone they can feel comfortable voting for. 

It's a tricky problem.  While he might very well be able to govern with a new style of politics, it's proving very difficult to get elected with them.  When McCain manages to force Obama to waste time and money defending himself against scurrilous attacks and outright lies, McCain doubles his winnings.  He wins not only because Obama is thrown off his message that McCain is out of touch and is offering no real solutions, but also because Obama seems a little less special each time he engages in gutbucket politics.  And, on the other hand, if Obama chooses not to rise to the bait, he comes across as weak, unwilling to fight for himself.  And if he's unwilling to defend himself, how can we expect him to defend the American people.  Like I said, it's a tricky problem.

McCain faces some of the same challenges.  McCain has spent years railing against Beltway politics and nasty campaigning.  Yet, when presented with the opportunity to carry his party's banner, he dropped those vaunted principles of his faster than he dropped his first wife.  When he realized he was going to have to go negative to stand any chance whatsoever, he replaced Terry Nelson with Steve Schmidt and saved a seat in the back of the Straight Talk Express for Schmidt's mentor, Karl Rove.  He agonized over throwing his lifelong ideal of honor off the back of the bus for about a second and a half.

The difference is, Republicans can win with lies.  They're comfortable getting down and dirty.  They've been doing it since Lee Atwater.  Hell, since Pat Buchanan.  Republicans talk about the high road and idealism and leaving the world a better place for our kids.  But they don't mean it.  You aren't serious about improving the next generation's lot in life if you are borrowing money hand over fist against their future.  You're not serious if you are unwilling to admit that the country's infrastructure is crumbling and that it's going to take hugh sums to repair it.  Sums that will require more than cutting earmarks and eliminating wasteful government programs.  Goods and services cost money.  The only way to raise that money is to raise taxes.  Which the Republicans are unwilling to admit.  (Note I didn't say they're unwilling to do.  They'll do it.  They just won't admit it.)  You're not serious about leaving the world a better place if you deny the causes and effects of global warming and refuse to consider environmental, energy and transportation policies that are necessary to combat climate change.

Obama started out this campaign almost two years ago and has been trying to stick to the high road ever since.  He was mostly successful in the Democratic primaries because he was running against, well, Democrats.  There is a bar below which, for the most part, Democrats will not crawl.  Let's call it common decency.  

But now we're in the general election and it's Obama against the Republicans.  He's been slogging along the high road, dodging McCain mudballs and slowly losing his lead.  Last week he came to a bend in the road.  He rounded the turn and pulled up short.  He was met with Lipstick on a Pig and Comprehensive Sex Education for Kindergarteners.  Behind which, the high road had vanished.  It had crumbled and collapsed as surely as the bridges and roadways across America under the strain of Republican economic policy.  It had become the Road to Nowhere.

So, Obama no longer has a choice.  McCain has forced him to finish the journey on the low road.  It was a noble experiment, this New Politics, but it's not for winning elections.  Time to take the gloves off.  Hopefully, Obama can put them back on when it comes time to govern.

I Tried

Every four years I promise myself I'm going to make it through an entire Republican Convention.  Four nights, five-six hours each night . . . no big deal, right?  I do it happily for the Democrats.  From gavel to gavel, from invocation to acceptance, I am always interested and often thrilled by the spectacle of my party making sausage.  If for no other reason than civic duty, I feel I should be able to do the same on the Republican side.

But I can't.  Every four years I fail miserably.  I generally make it through all of Monday night, albeit with a splitting headache.  By 9:00 pm Tuesday, however, the country music and chants of USA! and Drill Now! (or that year's convention's equivalent rants) are beginning to chip away at my resolve.  I call it quits a couple of hours early, but I'm able to convince myself I captured the gist of the night's message.  Besides, I'm TiVo-ing.  I'll catch up tomorrow.  Remember back in college when you had a three hour lecture class and you would cut out at the break to meet your buddies down at the pub, figuring you'd copy the notes of the girl who sat behind you next week?  It's like that.  On Wednesday, I watch the Veep nominee's speech, turn off the TV and have a fight with my girlfriend.  Because, by this point, I feel like someone has been striking me in the middle of my forehead with a ballpeen hammer for 72 hours.  Thursday night I manage to last through about ten minutes of the Republican nominee's speech playing in the background as I stare blankly at the ceiling before I throw a bottle through the television screen. 

Every four years.

This week was the same, only worse.  I've been watching these things since 1972 and the Republican Convention that ended last night was the most disingenuous, hypocritical, mean-spirited, race-baiting, classist (I'd add sexist but the Republicans have nominated an ex-beauty contest winner and Miss Congeniality for their runner-up spot, so they have necessarily had to soft peddle their usual little-woman condescension) celebration of the dark side of America's ruling class that I have as yet had the pleasure of violently pre-empting before the balloons fell.

They sneered at the concept of community organizing.  They clamored for change with a straight face, as though by not mentioning Bush's name we will forget who has been carrying this hellbound hand basket for the past eight years.  They accused their opponents of being elitist and out-of-touch while their nominee's wife had the gall to show up on stage wearing $300,000 worth of runway clothes and jewels.   

I am, for the most part, happy to debate the relative merits of the progressive agenda against the conservative platform.  Point of fact, I spend a fair amount of each day engaged just so.  But I need a short break here.  If you can picture yourself walking into the voting booth and pulling the lever for McCain-Palin after having watched both parties present their cases these past two weeks, well . . . I've got nothing.  Go to TPM or Kos or Huffington Post and browse the literally thousands of posts which delineate the Republican's mendacity and absolute dearth of fresh ideas or innovative policies.  

If that sounds like a cop out on my part, so be it.  But it's hard duty, trying to put yourself in the shoes of an enthusiastic Republican conventioneer.  Walk a mile?  Hell, I can't get the things laced up.  I'm beat.  I'm tired and, worse than that, I feel dirty.  I feel like I need a long, hot shower.  No, come to think of it, a shower won't get it done.  I need to take a few days and travel to a spring-fed mountain lake.  I will bathe naked in its cold, clear waters and commune with nature.  I will meditate on the question of good versus evil.  I shall observe a vow of silence.  

And then I'll drive back Sunday night ready to re-enter the fray.  By which time, I might add, I fully expect this silly Palin fervor to have broken.  If Obama loses, it won't be because the Republicans picked a right-wing, creationist, abortion-abolishing nut who hasn't yet formulated an opinion on the Iraq War as their vice presidential candidate.  The race is about Obama and McCain and, after the past two weeks, it still looks like a mismatch to me.

McCain should lose, if for no other reason than he is the worst speaker I have ever heard at this level of politics.  I thought W was bad?  Shoot, Bush is John Barrymore next to McCain.  It seems to me that the bare minimum qualification for being handed the world's tallest soapbox should be the ability to use a teleprompter.  The thought of watching McCain address the nation for the next four years, his gaze locked on the cue cards like a rat eyeballing a piece of cheese in a trap, ignoring pauses and stepping on applause lines, declaring wars and cutting taxes while the deficit continues to skyrocket and ice shelves the size of Manhattan tumble into the Arctic seas is either too depressing or too terrifying for me to contemplate right now.  Maybe both.  

I'll be at the lake if you need me.

"It's Sarah, Senator."

Rrrrrring!

"Hello."

"Governor, Senator McCain is on the line."

"Awesome.  Put him through."

"Sandra, it's John McCain.  I hope I didn't wake you."

"Um, no, I was just putting up some walrus meat.  Where does the day go, right?  Well, you know what they say, there's only twenty-two hours of light in a day.  And it's Sarah, actually."

"Beg pardon?"

"My name is Sarah, not Sandra."

"Oh, right.  My bad.  Look, I'll get right to the point.  I just finished watching Obama in Denver and, I don't mind telling you, I'm a little worried.  For whatever reason, people don't seem to be seeing through his messiah act.  First reactions are coming in on the convention and I expect he'll see a pretty good bounce.  We need to shake things up here."

"Er, well, I didn't really watch . . . the baby keeps me pretty busy these days."

"Sure, sure.  Well, trust me, our country is in grave danger.  And I believe that I'm the one to save us.  But I'll need your help.  What would you say to running with me?"

"Running with you?  Why, sure, that sounds fun.  I'm quite the runner, actually.  I finished Humpy's Marathon back in 2005 in under four hours!  How far do you usually go?"

"I don't run, my friend.  I don't run.  When most people were taking up jogging, I was locked in a room, without a table, for five and a half years."

"I'm sorry, Senator.  That was insensitive of me."

"Don't worry about it, kid.  I like your spunk.  I'm not talking about jogging, I'm talking about running as my vice-presidential candidate.  Would you do that?"

"Jeez, I'm shocked.  You could knock me over with a penguin feather, Senator.  Do you really think I'm qualified?"

"Huh?  Qualified?  Listen, Sandy, if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, the vice president has two jobs:  to attend state funerals and to inquire after the health of the president.  Can you do that?"

"Absolutely.  I've got the cutest fox stole I pull out on formal occasions."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to leave the furs in Alaska, Governor.  They don't play down here in DC with the liberal media.  Let me ask you, what's your position on the Iraq War?"

"To tell you the truth, Senator, I don't really have one.  We're pretty independent up here, sir.  We don't pay much attention to the outside world.  To us, you're all pretty much snowbirds."

"Independent.  I like that.  Anything else I should know?"

"Well, I should mention, we're having a spot of trouble with Bristol. . . "

"Pistols?  Don't you worry about the gun issue, Governor.  I used to tussle with the NRA, but I've come around to their side these past few months.  Gun owners have no stronger friend than Senator John McCain and I think your position as a sportswoman can only help the ticket.  You know, pacify the base, shut their yaps for just one goddamn minute.  No, this is feeling right to me.  You know, Sandy, I've always been a shoot-from-the-hip kind of guy.  My gut told me 'Joe,' but my base told me, 'no.'"  OK, then, we move on.  But it's got to be outside the box.  If I play it safe, this race will be The Death of a Thousand Cuts.  Which I know a little about, after spending five and a half years in a real box.  So we'll change the game.  This is the first maverick move I've made since I won the nomination.  I'm back, baby!"

"Not 'pistols,' Senator, Bristol.  My seventeen year old daughter just told us she's five months pregnant.  Now we have to plan a wedding, and quick.  Good thing I own a shotgun, right, sir?  No telling what that boy of hers would have done."

"Listen, family is sacred.  I learned that back in '98 when I told that little joke about Chelsea Clinton at a fund-raiser.  Have you heard it?"

"No, how does it go?"

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?"

"I don't know.  Why?"

"Because her father is Janet Reno.  Get it?  'Course, it was much funnier back then.  She was a mighty plain eighteen year-old, don't you think?  Anyway, I took eight kinds of hell for that one.  Obambi won't dare use your daughter against us."

"Uh, OK, Senator, if you say so.  Just one last thing -- I wanted to mention that I'm being investigated . . ."

"That's fine, Governor, just fine.  It's been good talking to you.  I had a strong feeling about you the other time we talked.  What was it, six months ago?  Now I'm even more sure this is the way to go.  My people will be in touch.  Good night, Sandra."

"It's Sarah, Senator.  I'll be. . ."

Click.

Are We Really This Dumb?

Fred Crane died today, at the age of 90.  He was the actor who played the role of Brent Tarleton in the 1939 classic, "Gone With The Wind."  His character is remembered primarily for speaking the first lines of the film, "What do we care if we were expelled from college, Scarlett?  The war is going to start any day now, so we'd have left college anyhow."

I've often remembered that line as I've winced over George Bush's many gaffes and policy blunders.  Bush was a shining example of the "Gentleman's C" at Yale.  Having gained entry thanks to his legacy status (his father and grandfather were both Elis), he obviously didn't feel pressed to exert himself in the classroom.  As the family name opened doors in New Haven for W., so would they open doors in the world of business and politics to follow.

And now we're presented with John McCain as a candidate for president.  McCain's father and grandfather were both admirals in the U.S. Navy and, like Bush, he cashed in on his legacy status and followed them to the Naval Academy.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he, also like Bush, didn't exactly apply himself to his studies -- he finished ranked 894th in his class of 899 cadets.  Like President Bush, McCain is comfortable with his academic performance, capable of  joking about it on the campaign trail. 

Which is fine, I suppose.  History is certainly replete with examples of men and women who have gone on to great successes after indifferent academic careers.  But what's troubling is the thin, sneering veneer of condescension that the Republicans use so predictably every four years to smear their opponent as an elitist intellectual, as if being smart is a bad thing.  Troubling, not so much because they do it, but rather, that it works.  

I've been watching for some time now, and I'm pretty sure America is getting stupider.  Presidential politics aside, the lowest common denominator grows lower and commoner by the year.  In 2007, a study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 averaged two hours a day watching TV and only seven minutes each day reading.  In 2002, only 52 percent of Americans read a single book voluntarily, down from a whopping 59 percent in 1992.  

Television is not exempt.  Always the cotton candy of popular media, today's prime-time fare has regressed to where it's positively drool-inducing.  "Your Show of Shows" "The Honeymooners" and "All In The Family" -- all smart, topical and popular shows of previous generations -- have been replaced by the current hits, "American Idol" "Deal Or No Deal" and "24" -- all dumb, fantastical and, yes, wildly popular.

And cinema's no better.  It has now completely surrendered to an audience still dreaming of obtaining their first driver's license.  Now, this is not scientific.  I'd research the exact numbers but it's too painful -- like watching Larry Bird steal Isiah Thomas' inbounds pass for the seven millionth time.  But, basically, a third of all tickets in this country are sold to films made by Pixar, a third are sold to variations of a romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey (or, if they're busy, Cameron Diaz and . . . oh, pick one), and a third are sold to Batman and other movies based on comic books.

The last type is the worst.  Not because comics are inherently inferior to bubble gum romance or Disney on steroids.  The problem is, somewhere along the road these superhero movies started to be taken seriously.  And not just as works of art but as socio-political statements.  

"The Dark Knight," the latest, and most commercially successful, installment in the Batman franchise, has sold around a half a billion dollars in tickets to date.  It has been been written about ad nauseum -- reviewed and deconstructed in every magazine, newspaper and blog this side of the Wall Street Journal.

Oops, scratch that.  The Wall Street Journal did, indeed weigh in.  On July 25th, Andrew Klavan wrote the single most preposterous review I have ever read.  It's not that he makes the comparison between Batman and George Bush, or "The Dark Knight" and the war on terror.  Those are obvious metaphors that even the director, Christopher Nolan, cryptically concedes were intentional.  

But Klavan goes off the deep end when he argues that the film should be a call to arms for conservative artists in their battle against the left-wing "realism."  He says,

"Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth?  Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "200," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight."

and,

"Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic.  Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex.  They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms."

and,

"The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love."

and finally,

"As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gorden says of the hated and hunted Batman, 'He has to run away -- because we have to chase him.'

"That's real moral complexity."

No, that's really dumb.  It's why we've lost over 4,000 men and women in Iraq.  It's why in Britain, our closest ally left in the world, 35 percent of the people now consider us a "force for evil."  (That's not Iran or Iraq, folks, that's frigging ENGLAND.)  It's why offshore drilling for oil is even a campaign issue.

America likes to keep it simple, stupid.  At the Saddleback Forum, Pastor Rick Warren asked Barack Obama if evil exists and, if so, should we ignore it, negotiate with it, contain it or defeat it?  Obama gave one of his typically nuanced answers, metaphorically conceding that he wasn't God and that evil would always exist.  The best we can hope to do is act as soldiers in the battle against it and confront it with humility, as often evil has been perpetrated in the name of confronting it.  That's a nice, subtle way of injecting the atrocities of the Bush administration's war -- Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Extreme Renditions, Black Site Prisons -- into the conversation without getting down on the ground and rolling around in the mud.  It was classic Obama, love it or hate it.

When his turn to answer came, John McCain replied, steely-eyed, "Defeat it," and promised to pursue bin Laden to "the gates of hell."   The crowd went crazy.

It was like being at the theatre, watching "The Dark Knight."  The Joker would pull some strings and the entire Gotham police department would rush to his proposed target, only to discover he was playing them.  At which point, they'd pivot and rush, en masse, to the next potential catastrophe.  It reminded me of nothing so much as a soccer game among eight year-olds.

  

And it made me tired.  My problem with "The Dark Knight" wasn't conservative vs. liberal.  My problem was that, ultimately, it was dumb.  It was often incoherent and it went on way too long.  After awhile, the explosions and special effects lost their ability to shock and awe.  I became unwilling, finally, to suspend my disbelief.  I spent the last half-hour waiting for the credits to appear.

Come to think of it, it did resemble the Bush administration after all.

So that's where we're at.  Batman's our foreign policy model and another cowboy's running for president.  Are we getting dumber?  Stay tuned. 

Obama's Margin

What's it going to take to push Obama over the 50 percent mark?

He just completed a tour of the Middle East and Europe and was welcomed throughout as a conqueror, a liberator, as a breath of fresh . . . well, he wasn't George Bush.  And that was good enough.  Jordan's King Abdullah personally chauffeured Obama from dinner to O-Force One.  Sarkozy all but filled out an absentee ballot in making his preferences known for the upcoming election.  200,000 Germans waved American flags at Berlin's Victory Column as he assured them that this is their time as well as ours.

Back in the states, Team McCain stewed.  They bemoaned the press's love affair with all things Obama.  They countered video of Barack's triumphal speech in Berlin with footage of McCain taking questions at -- it might have been the Piggly Wiggly, I'm not sure -- in Bethlehem.  That's Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, not the one with the manger.  They ran ads claiming Obama would rather lose the war than the election and would rather work out than visit wounded troops.  Patently absurd but, hey, the Straight Talk Express ain't what it used to be, is it?  Basically, they ceded a two-week news cycle to their opponent and were reduced to nitpicking his performance as he tap danced across the world stage, winning friends and influencing people.  It was like watching a bunch of old maids critique the swimsuit competition at the Miss America contest.

So where's the bump?  How can Obama create some space in this contest?  

I suppose he could choose a running mate -- beat McCain and the inevitable Romney to the punch.  But it's not like his options are all that exciting, either.  Here's a list of possibilities and why Obama hasn't snatched one up yet:

Hillary -- too Clinton.  Her Veep negatives poll as high as her positives.

Biden -- too Beltway.

Richardson -- too brown.  Barack's got enough trouble trying to win working whites already.

Edwards -- too many kids.

Bayh -- supported the war.

Bloomberg -- too rich, sort of Republican.

Sibelius -- not Hillary.

Webb -- Tailhook.

Rendell -- unwilling second banana.

There are more -- Virginia governor Tim Kaine, retired general Wesley Clark -- but no one who makes your heart skip a beat.  Certainly no one who's going to push the polls.

Which is the point, finally.  Nobody votes on the vice president.  Kaine, Rendell, Biden -- all fine choices but they're not going to help (or hurt) Obama's chances.  Clinton might be a big enough name to throw some weight around but it's going to cut both ways.

The only thing that's going to drive Obama over 50% is voter registration and turnout.  Kids, African-Americans and Hispanics.  He needs blacks to comprise at least 13% of the total vote, up from 11% in '04 and 10% in 'oo.  Assuming at least 130 million vote ( a fair assumption, considering 120 million voted in the last election and registration is off the charts), that would mean around 17 million of them will be African Americans, up from around 13 million in '04.  

According to a New York Times/CBS News poll taken on July 16, Obama is currently favored over McCain among blacks by a margin of 89-2.  He leads among Hispanics 62-23.  McCain holds a 46-37 advantage among whites.  If Obama can hold, or improve upon, those margins, as well as continue to attract new voters to his campaign, he won't have to worry about those tricky "hard-working whites" that claim they don't know him yet. 

I'm not talking about all blue collar whites.  It's the voters the Obama campaign is specifically targeting with its most recent mailer that are problematic.  The ones that are still asking questions like, "Does he wear a flag pin?"  "Is he a Christian?"  "Was he sworn in on the bible?"  "Was he born in America?"  That sort of nonsense.  Sure, there are people out there who don't pay much attention to politics until election week, but I don't think they're the one's doing the asking.  These questions are code for, "Do you really expect me to vote for a black man?"  And while the answer to each question in the mailer is "Yes," the honest response to their ultimate question is "No, I guess I probably don't."

The people-just-don't-know-him-yet argument won't fly anymore.  Obama's been a front-page, prime-time story since at least January.  I keep hearing about how Americans are much more comfortable with John McCain, that they just have a feel for how he'll perform as president that they don't have yet for the the new kid in town.  Well, I'd be willing to bet the average man on the street could actually tell you more about Barack Obama than he could John McCain.  That he was born in Hawaii and brought up in Indonesia.  That he was raised by a single mom and his grandparents.  That he was a community organizer in Chicago after law school.  That he opposed the war.  McCain?  Take away the Hanoi Hilton and the Surge from his narrative and what do you have?  I suspect 4 out of 5 voters couldn't identify a single biographical or legislative accomplishment of note.  Of the other 20%, half would identify him as a maverick, campaign finance reformer and the other half would label him a flip-flopper.  How can anyone honestly say they feel comfortable with who he is?  He's pivoted 180 degrees since his last presidential run.  Maverick?  I don't think so.  He's a guy with a temper who likes to tell dirty jokes.  

People are uncomfortable talking about the racial aspect of this election.  There was much hope that Obama's Philadelphia speech in March would initiate a national dialogue which would begin to heal the scars of our racial divide.  The enthusiasm lasted about a week before the discussion was dropped.  Other than a half-hearted debate about whether Obama's Appalachian Problem was race-based as Hillary rolled him in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, the subject has not, for the most part, been revisited.

I'm not sure Obama can transcend race in this election.  75 percent of the voters in this country are white and less than 40 percent of them say they have a favorable impression of the African American candidate.  I don't know what he can do to change their minds in the upcoming months.  

Fortunately for him, he might not have to.  Each day the electorate seems to grow younger and more diverse as McCain appears older and less relevant.  Obama may finally overcome the race obstacle, not by transcending it, but by overwhelming it.      

 

Hillary Who?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, runner-up in the race to be the Democratic presidential nominee, may want to be vice president.  Or she may not.  She may prefer to consider the prospects of Supreme Court justice, cabinet member, Senate Majority Leader or the pursuit of a distinguished legislative career as the junior senator from New York.  All options are on the table and the world waits breathlessly.

Oh, and on Tuesday, a black man was presumptively nominated to be President of the United States.

As a news item, I realize it pales it comparison to uncovering the answer to that timeless question, "What does Hillary want?"  Judging by the media coverage, you'd think most of the eighteen million who voted for Hillary, as well as a good chunk of Obama's eighteen million supporters, were cashing in sick days and vacation time to stay home and monitor the minute-by-minute vicissitudes of Hillary's future prospects.

Who gives a rat's hindquarters? 

She's no longer the story and the sooner the media acknowledges that, the better off we'll all be.  There's a concept known as Q quotient.  It's the attractiveness, and therefore marketability,  of a celebrity.  Well, just before 10 p.m. Tuesday night, when Obama surpassed the 2,118 mark in total delegates, Hillary's political Q quotient dropped by about fifty percent.  She's still on the A list but, let's be honest, the gap between nominee and runner-up is the distance between Mozart and Salieri.  

The Democratic Party is now Obama's Party.  He unleashed a blitzkrieg when he announced his candidacy for president on February 10, 2007 in Springfield, Illinois.  In less than than sixteen months, he went from being a freshman Midwestern senator to the undisputed face of his party.  We had grown so accustomed to the Clinton brand since 1992 that the abrupt shift in power seems all the more seismic.  Less than a year and a half ago it was unthinkable that Hillary would be on the vice-presidential short list and that Bill would have been reduced to albatross status.

But Barack Obama, the Zen Master Assassin from Chicago's South Side, by way of Jakarta, Indonesia and Honolulu, Hawaii, wrested the party from their grasp in front of our eyes.  It was like watching a ninja pluck the still-beating heart from his enemy's chest.  He moved quickly today to follow up on his primary victory, installing his strategist Paul Tewes at the DNC to oversee fundraising.  The DNC announced it will no longer be accepting contributions from federal lobbyists or political action committees, bringing it in line with the Obama campaign's policies.

It's hard to see Obama tapping Clinton for his VP.  While it's impossible to predict definitively her net value or drag on the ticket, Obama can make a strong argument that he doesn't need her.  

She has substantially higher negatives than any other candidate, thereby assuring a more motivated opposition from both the Republican base as well as Clinton haters in both parties.  

While roughly a quarter of Clinton's supporters claim they will vote for McCain in the general election, past evidence suggests this may be a heat-of-the-moment threat.  Since 1992, less than 10% of Democrats and Republicans have crossed party lines when voting for president.  How many women will actually vote to effectively overturn Roe v. Wade in November because they feel somehow cheated or disrespected by the Obama campaign is very much open for debate.  (Appalachia, not so much.  Obama might have to write off that vote although it wouldn't hurt him in some of the swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania to venture into a few hollers to say howdy.  Although, when over twenty percent of voters in Kentucky's primary admit that race was a factor in their decision, even the Scranton Scrapper herself riding shotgun isn't going to bring in the hillbilly vote.) 

In addition, the Clinton Circus travels complete with its own baggage car.  Does Obama really want to deal with that drama for the entirety of his presidency?  How comfortable is he going to be that the Clinton's aren't pursuing their own agendas in the backrooms of Georgetown and Foggy Bottom that they already know so well?  

Speaking of Clintons, plural, Bill might be a Veep deal-breaker all by himself.  Would he be able to pass the inevitable vetting process, what with his undisclosed list of donors and his murky business dealings around the world since he left office?  Would he even want to risk the humiliation?  And, if he did come through the process cleanly, of what value are assurances from the Clintons that he would remain in New York, concentrating on his foundation and piling up frequent flier miles on Air Burkle?  Does anyone really believe that the Big Dawg could actually be kept on a short leash for the next eight years?  

Most importantly, Obama needs to enter the battle with McCain from a position of strength.  He's already saddled with the classic Democrat mantle of "soft on defense," exacerbated by his perceived eagerness to negotiate with anyone who owns a table and two chairs.  Plus, he's Harvard-bred, he dines on salmon and broccoli, he prefers tea to beer and he bowls the way most voters play polo.  The last impression he needs to give is that Hillary dangled her support as so much political capital and managed to strong-arm her way onto the ticket against his effete, elitist will.  

Besides, after watching McCain's performance on Tuesday (Gail Collins of the New York Times captured it perfectly), it's difficult to imagine Obama losing -- I don't care if he picks Mike Gravel.  The contrast between the two candidates could not have been starker.  McCain would be the oldest candidate ever elected president.  His message is incoherent.  He supports the Iraq War, in direct opposition to somewhere between half and three-quarters of the American people.  He's selling Iran as America's most dangerous enemy, the same Iran that has inarguably been the largest beneficiary of the very same Iraq War he defends.  He supports Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy although, to be fair, he admits that he doesn't understand economics.  And he's pushing lobbyists out the back of the Straight Talk Express like ballast off of the Titanic.  

Hillary, besides being yesterday's news, is the least of Obama's worries.  I think his biggest obstacle is going to be overconfidence.   

McCain's Fantasy

I walked around all weekend with a bounce to my step and woke this morning with a song in my heart.  I attribute my good cheer to the speech John McCain gave Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.  Did you see it?  If not, you really should read it in its entirety.  He painted a picture of where America would be at the end of his first term as president. 

It's a long speech.  Not long like a Bill Clinton State of the Union address -- more like a Chronicles of Narnia type of long.  Or like the director's cut of The Lord of the Rings boxed set.  Basically, it's the public policy version of fantasy literature, without the Christian overtones.

In McCain's vision of 2013, Iraq is a functioning democracy whose militias have been disbanded and the government has imposed its beneficent authority in all provinces.  Pakistan has partnered vigorously with us to capture and/or kill Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda has been reduced to a leaderless rabble with no place to call home.  Although the U.N. Security Council proved incapable of ending the genocide in Darfur, the nascent League of Democracies has stepped in and, through stiff economic measures, persuaded the Sudanese government and their janjaweed thugs to halt their ethnic cleansing of the country's tribal  farmers.  More concerted action by the world's democracies has convinced China and Russia to persuade Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear programs.  Our Army and Marine Corps are bigger and better than ever.  The world food crisis has ended.  Global cooling has begun.  And Congress no longer attaches earmarks to appropriations bills after a stern veto or two by President McCain.

Well.  Like McCain, I am a big believer in positive thinking so I've compiled my own modest list of where I hope/expect to be by the end of his first term:  

I have two books on the New York Times bestseller list (the fifth and sixth so honored during term #1).  Four of those will have been made into major motion pictures with both a best picture Oscar and a best adaptation (also done by me) Oscar to show for it.  

To the astonishment of the orthopedic community, the meniscus in my knee has regenerated itself and I am able to dunk a basketball at the age of 53.  I run five miles a day and my spacious, walk-in closet is filled with 32-inch waist slacks of the smoothest cotton/poly blend that rarely wrinkles.

My wife and I have adopted two children, they've matured remarkably quickly and cost-effectively, and are both heading this fall for Ivy League schools on full rides, leaving us, no doubt, a bit lonely but eagerly anticipating quality time with each other once again after these last four chaotic but joyous years.

Gas is $11 a gallon even though the Lieberman-Vitter Right-to-Drive bill (which requires anyone attempting to buy gas on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Saturday to present the station attendant with their National I.D. card) has been in effect for almost a year now, but we don't drive much.  We spend most of the year at our beach house in Southampton and I can ride my bicycle to the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club which I joined after winning the National Book Award and they relaxed their dress code to allow flip-flops in the lounge.  I play to a 3-handicap and rarely visit the driving range to practice.

I've had my iPhone implanted directly into my head.  And, thanks to the partnership between Apple and NIH, I can now download mp3 files directly to my brain so I no longer have to listen to music -- I can just remember it by blinking my eyes.  I don't even recall what it felt like to wear earplugs.

I've attained fluency in Italian solely through listening to self-improvement Podcasts on my computer and I can play some of the easier Goldberg Variations on the keyboard I purchased last year at Sharper Image, thanks also to self-helpful pamphlets that came included with the packing materials.  

Money's not much of an issue, to be honest with you.  I'm really raking it in and I'm incorporated, of course.  Thanks to the Bush-McCain tax cuts, I actually pay less in total taxes now than when I was scraping to get by as a freelancer in 2008.  Boy, was I wrong about those tax cuts.

So, there you have it.  My McCain-inspired list of positive projections for the relatively near future.  Like Senator McCain, while I intend to make my dreams reality, I cannot guarantee I will achieve them all.  But I like my odds of success against his.  I put my list down beside his speech to compare the two.  If I was the type to judge, I'd say his was the more delusional.

Hillary and Barack -- Star-Cross'd Democrats

Watching the Democrats these past weeks in Pennsylvania has been ugly.  There has been none of the exuberance that characterized the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.  Little of the policy debates we were treated to in California and Nevada.  John McCain has been given a free month-and-a-half to self-correct his economic message blunders and embark on a tour of America's "forgotten places" (forgotten, I suppose, if you're rich and white and have no children in Iraq -- let's just go ahead and call you Republican).  He's spending the week in places like Appalachia, the Lower Ninth in New Orleans and Gee's Bend, Alabama, where white cops beat black demonstrators on the march to Montgomery in 1965.  Whether his Pander Tour bears fruit is yet to be determined -- he spoke to a mostly white crowd in Gee's Bend -- but it certainly won't hurt his chances in November.  Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama have moved into a clinch, trading kidney punches and low blows as they stagger towards the convention in Denver.  On second thought, "ugly" doesn't do this justice.  It's becoming tragic.

Two households, both alike in dignity,

  In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

        From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

           Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

Shakespeare was setting the stage for Romeo and Juliet, but he could just as easily have been describing primary season in Philadelphia.  Barack and Hillary, two sides of the same left-center coin.  So similar that it takes careful parsing to differentiate most of their policy positions.  It was just eleven weeks ago, at the debate in Los Angeles:

Obama:  I respect Senator Clinton...I'm glad we've been walking on this road together.

Clinton:  I have to agree with everything Barack just said.

At one point, Wolf Blitzer tried to instigate a confrontation between them and their response was:

Clinton:  We're having such a good time.  We are.  We are.  We're having a wonderful time.

Obama:  Yes, absolutely.

Fast-forward a couple of months to Pennsylvania:

Goddamn America -- He would not be my pastor -- I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community -- I remember landing under sniper fire -- We just ran with our heads down -- They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them -- Obama's remarks are elitist and they are out of touch -- I think that they played the race card on me.

It's not iambic pentameter, but if the arc from the Iowa caususes to the Pennsylvania primary isn't tragic, I'll eat my English degree.  By the way, if you want to remind yourself of what a real political debate sounds like, take a moment to review the transcript of that Los Angeles debate.  Compared to the travesty ABC moderated in Philadelphia, it's Lincoln-Douglass.  L.A. was a love-fest, Philly was mud wrestling.

This is what it's come down to:  the Democrats are eating their young.  Black against white, blue collar versus college degree, women against men.  The vision of an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama dream ticket is shrinking rapidly in our rear-view mirror.  Those who argue the party will come together in November against McCain haven't been paying attention.  Pennsylvania exit polls detailed by the New York Times found that 16% of white voters said race matters and only 54% of those said they would support Obama in the general election.  27% said they would vote for McCain if Obama was the nominee and 16% said they would not vote at all.  20% of gun owners and church-goers said they would vote for McCain.  Only 60% of Democratic Catholics said they would vote for Obama in the general, 21% are prepared to vote for McCain.  

How did the Democrats arrive at this point?  Obama is practically the presumptive nominee and Democrats are jumping ship like it's the Caine Mutiny.  Clinton's strategy, stolen from the Atwater/Rove playbook, has been to depress the idealistic optimism of Obama's campaign while sowing seeds of doubt as to his character and electability.  It has worked -- appealing to man's baser instincts generally does.  Obama's overall positives have dropped considerably over the past few weeks.  The thing is, negative campaigning cuts both ways.  Clinton's negatives have risen along with Obama's.  And for what?  The warfare in the Pennsylvania trenches looks to have netted her a 9.2% win in the popular vote and fourteen delegates.  She still has no viable path to victory and refuses to consider an exit strategy.  It's the Iraq surge with cheese steaks.  

                Where be these enemies?  Capulet!  Montague!

         See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

                         That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.

And I for winking at your discords too

               Have lost a brace of kinsmen:  all are punish'd.

This is beginning to feel ominous.  McCain is running on the Iraq War, tax cuts and bailing out the investment bankers at the expense of those losing their homes.  And he's gaining ground!  Democrats can continue reassuring themselves that the party will reunite in time, pointing to Kennedy/Johnson and Kerry/Edwards, but this is different.  This time the opposing candidates are, for all their similarities, a black man and a white woman.  And it's becoming apparent that all the policy matches in the world can't smooth over that difference for much of the Democratic base.  Especially as they continue firing on each other, accentuating the animosities between the two campaigns and their respective followers.  

Let's hope, given the stakes facing the country, the 2008 election doesn't play as tragedy, to be summed up sometime in the future with a couplet:

                 For never was a story of more bitter drama

   Than this of Hillary and her Obama.

The Hardball College Tour Charade

Watching the Hardball College Tour with Chris Matthews and John McCain last night from Villanova University confirmed what I had suspected after the Obama version a couple of weeks ago.  This isn't hardball.  It isn't softball.  It isn't even beanbag toss.  

It's Midnight Madness.  

For those who aren't college basketball fans, Midnight Madness takes place in October and kicks off the upcoming season.  Schools around the country fill their gyms at 12:01 a.m. of opening day with students to introduce the team and coaches and then run through their first practice.  The band is in full swing, cheerleaders whip the crowd into a frenzy and boosters sit courtside, inspecting their stable of athletes.  Lefty Driesell, the coach at the University of Maryland, started it in 1970 as a way of attracting attention to his program.  It was an instant success and has become a national tradition.  ESPN covers it with nearly the same enthusiasm they show towards the Final Four at season's end.

The only manner in which it differs from the regular season is that there is no real competition.  Everyone is on the same team.  Oh, the shirts might scrimmage against the skins, but they'll all be showering together when the festivities end.

That's the Hardball College Tour.  They pick a college venue guaranteed to be sympathetic to the candidate -- West Chester University for Obama, University at Albany for Hillary in '02 and Villanova, especially Villanova, for McCain -- fill up an auditorium with the March Madness crowd and Matthews proceeds to set balls on a tee for the candidate to knock out of the park.

There are no "hardball" questions.  Matthews warning McCain that a question is going to be tough doesn't make it so.  He led off with, "How will you be different than President Bush?"  A real body blow.  When McCain could only refer specifically to his approach towards climate change, Matthews gently prompted, "You also disagree with him on torture."  

Well played, sir.

As for Villanova, McCain hasn't entertained a group of that many enthusiastic WASPs since his last press corps barbecue at his Sedona ranch.  I'm not saying it's a white school, but their own alumnae refer to it as "Vanillanova."  Suffice it to say that none of the student questioners were lining up to challenge him on his 1983 vote against the MLK holiday.

They did, however, display their true colors proudly.  The first student to pose a question was Matthew Brady, editor emeritus of the Villanova Times.  He chose to spend his fifteen seconds of fame asking McCain if, "you would characterize yourself, as Barack Obama would phrase, as a typical white person."  The next boy, a hint of mischief twinkling in his eye, wanted to know if McCain thought Hillary has, "finally resorted to hitting the sauce," and, "if you would care to join me for a shot after this?"  Ah, the precociousness of youth.  The little dears.  The second kid happened to be Peter Doocy, son of Fox & Friends' anchor, Steve Doocy.  The resemblance is striking.

Even Matthews was struck by the lack of intellectual heft in the room.  He

good-naturedly complained, "We came here hoping for the best and we got two of the most wise-ass questions.  It's such a tribute to the academic rigors of this school."  It had more the feel of a fraternity kegger than a meeting of academia and politics.  Brady and Doocy came off as Eddie Haskells with money, real-life versions of Omega House's Doug Neidermyer and Greg Marmalard of "Animal House" fame.  To so gracefully employ race-baiting and political condescension at such a tender age was really quite impressive.  The Villanova Times heralded their performances today, labeling Brady "hilarious," and declaring the "show was off to a solid start quickly with student interaction."

At least they have an excuse for their attitudes -- they're Republican rich kids.  Matthews, on the other hand, is supposed to know better.  Rather than vamping shamelessly to the audience, it's his job to ask tough questions and demand direct answers.  When he scores a one-on-one, 60-minute interview with a presidential nominee, it would behoove him to cover as many relevant issues as possible:  foreign and domestic policy, traditional values as well as future visions.  Roughly speaking, I'd say they spent 15 minutes yukking it up and pandering to the crowd, 5 minutes on abortion and elitism, and the remaining 40 minutes on Iraq and national security.

Not one question on the economy.  We're on the front edge of a recession, 28 million Americans will soon be on food stamps, and millions are losing their homes while the rest of the country watches their home values plummet.  It's costing about $17 million per hour to keep the war without end chugging along.  As of March, 4.2 million Americans have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate is 5.1%.  

McCain finally gave an economic speech this week.  He has seen the light at the end of the tunnel leading to the presidency and now strongly favors the Bush tax cuts.  He seems to have misplaced his pledge to balance the budget by the end of his first term.  He wants to suspend the federal gasoline tax for the summer, thereby saving consumers a couple of bucks each time they fill up.  McCain has famously admitted that the economy is not his strong point.  The speech did nothing to refute his position.

Mightn't there be something  here worth talking about, face-to-face, in front of a national television audience?  Certainly, if the college tour was a serious political event.  But it's not -- it's Midnight Madness.

There is talk that Matthews will be leaving MSNBC soon.  Maybe to take over "Face the Nation" at CBS or possibly even to run for office.  It wouldn't have to mean the end of the College Tour, though.  I think ESPN's Dick Vitale is free all summer long.

America's Hypocrisy

When it comes to the War on Terror, the Bush administration is cynical almost beyond measure, but it would be difficult to accuse them of hypocrisy, at this point.  They obfuscate, exaggerate, and flat-out lie to further their agenda, whether they be justifying the prosecution of the Iraq War, illegally surveilling American citizens or torturing "enemy combatants" that may or may not be guilty (I hesitate to say, "as charged" -- many prisoners are still waiting, years after they were detained, to learn of their supposed offenses). 

But, if you accept the definition of hypocrisy as, "feigning to be what one is not," then it would be unfair to so insult Bush, Cheney, Rice, Hadley et al.  They're absolutely up front about who they are and what they're doing.  Bush has his worldview and he's not about to let facts cloud the lenses of his blood red-colored glasses.  As the civil war in Iraq boiled over this past week, he stood in front of an uneasy nation and did his best Richard Pryor imitation, asking, "Who you gonna believe?  Me or your lying eyes?  The surge is working."  Well, he didn't actually face the nation -- he delegated the job to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.  In their hearings in front of the Senate and House committees, they came across as honorable and competent men tasked with an impossible mission.  Make that two impossible missions.  One, to secure Iraq.  And two, to explain and defend current policy to the pack of mangy jackals that is a congressional hearing committee.  How many times can you say, "It will be over when it's over?"  I thought I was listening to "Revolution #9" off the Beatles "White Album."

When the facts or the laws don't fit, the Bushies change them:  

1. Al-Quaida in Iraq, an organization born of our invasion and occupation of the country, is shortened to Al-Quaida, thereby advancing the fiction that it's Bin Laden's group we're battling in Iraq.  (Interestingly, John McCain may be giving a preview of things to come with his repeated "mis-statements" that Al-Quaida is being trained in Iran.  I wouldn't put it past him to be intentionally repeating this lie in an effort to get the country fired up for the War on Terror II.  I don't buy the confusion line.  McCain is old but he's not stupid.)

2. Bush was supposedly unaware until recently that Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 2003, thereby clearing him to sound the drums for, wait for it, a second war based on false intelligence.  The prospect is so outrageous that he's even losing the conservatives over it, but if you're expecting a change of W's heart before he leaves office to await history's judgment, I wouldn't hold my breath.  

3. The administration picks and chooses which sections of the Geneva Convention to honor.  Prisoners of war become unlawful enemy combatants and, just like that, the Convention no longer applies.  Torture becomes "enhanced interrogation."  CIA operatives are excepted from the spirit and the rule of the Geneva Convention.  Guantanamo Bay has been ruled to not be US territory and, therefore, not bound by US law.  When, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court found that the Bush military commissions were illegal as they didn't meet the standards of "civilized peoples," Bush sent legislation legalizing his prerogatives to a spineless Congress, who passed it as the Military Commissions Law 2006.  In his article, "The U.S. Has a History of Using Torture," Alfred McCoy details how Bush then transferred top Al-Quaida captives from various CIA prisons to Gitmo where the law "strips detainees of their habeas corpus rights, sanctions endless detention without trial, and allows use of tortured testimony before Guantanamo Military Commissions."  This is in blatant disregard of our own 5th Amendment to the Constitution which reads, in part, "No person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law..."  As if tortured testimony could ever be admissible in a legitimate court of law.

The Bush administration does not even pretend to submit to the same principles and laws expected of the rest of the world.  And, in truth, it's hard to blame them.  They are so rarely held to account for their transgressions by either the media or the American people themselves.  Glenn Greenwald put it succinctly last October when he wrote:

"As a country, we've known undeniably for almost two years now that we have a lawless government and a President who routinely orders our laws to be violated.  His top officials have repeatedly been caught lying outright to Congress on the most critical questions we face.  They have argued out in the open that the "constitutional duty" to defend the country means that nothing -- including our "laws" -- can limit what the President does.

It has long been known that we are torturing, holding detainees in secret prisons beyond the reach of law and civilization, sending detainees to the worst human rights abusers to be tortured, and subjecting them ourselves to all sorts of treatment which both our own laws and the treaties to which we are party plainly prohibit.  None of this is new.

And we have decided, collectively as a country, to do nothing about that."

Nothing, indeed.  And yet, as the Olympic torch arrives upon our shores, we rush to line the streets of San Francisco, along the Embarcadero, in protest of the human rights abuses by the host country of China.  To voice our outrage that we are extending a hand of friendship to the imperial fist that is slowly crushing peace-loving Tibet.  To follow up Paris and London's protests with a little Yankee smackdown of our own.

All fine and good -- the Chinese should be held accountable.  They seem like pretty bad guys, given half a chance.  But where's the public uproar against our own government?  Where is the outcry against the way we present ourselves to the world?  I've written about this before and received many comments to the effect that we're not even in the same league as China and it's ridiculous to compare the two countries.

Really?  The reason for our collective silence is that we're not as bad as China?  Talk about lowering the bar.  Americans, unlike the current administration, are born with the gene of hypocrisy.  Born with it and then our culture nourishes it on a daily basis throughout our lives.  We preach freedom of choice and justice for all, as long as we're designing the menu and manning the scales.  As nearly as I can figure it, because we ended World War Two, landed on the moon and invented cable TV, we believe we really are superior to . . . well, everybody else.  That we should be showered with deference, gratitude and love by the rest of the world.  Like a citizen of the Roman Empire, free to walk the face of the earth without fear of molestation.   

The truth is, that hasn't been the case for some time.  Bush has spent whatever goodwill capital we had remaining over the past few years, running roughshod over international appeals for reason.  Meanwhile, Europe is using America as their own personal Filene's Basement, China continues to collect our IOU's and we send a billion dollars a day to the middle-east for oil to run our country.  The chickens may not be roosting yet, but they're on their way home.

All of which is why Barack Obama is the only candidate who makes sense as our next president.  It's going to take an extraordinary effort by an exceptional leader to rejoin the international community and repair our reputation, savaged by Team Bush.  It will require withdrawing our troops from Iraq, engaging in the fight to save the planet from global warming, strengthening the dollar so we regain our worldwide shopping privileges, righting the trade imbalances that are threatening our domestic productivity and, perhaps most importantly, earning back our position as one of the legitimate  voices for human rights around the world.

We can no longer afford to pick and choose who we will or won't talk with.  Iraq must be stabilized.  Iran must be brought into the international community of nations.  North Korea must be persuaded not to share its nuclear technology with anyone who comes knocking with a blank check in hand.  Cuba is back in play.  Chavez has threatened to stop shipping Venezualian oil to the U.S.

This is no time to be demanding preconditions before we will negotiate with troublesome nations.  For much of the rest of the world, we're a troublesome nation.  We need to sit down at as many tables as we can find a chair to and start convincing the international community that we are back.  We went a little crazy there for awhile but we feel better now and we're ready to get to work.  McCain can't do that.  You know what they say.  You can take the pilot out of the navy but you can't take the navy out of the pilot.  He'll always be a cold-war cowboy.  I could see him staring down Krushchev but I can't picture him at a table with Ahmadinejad  and Al-Assad negotiating America's role in Iraq's future.  And Clinton is adamant in her refusal to lend the prestige of the office to dicey negotiations, too (never mind that the prestige level is at an all-time low).  Desperate times call for a new approach. 

Obama has, from day one, promised to take JFK's advice, "never fear to negotiate," to heart.  He preaches his willingness to sit down with any and all of our adversaries in an attempt to find some common ground.  It's a harbinger of how he views America's role in the future.  We can again lead by example, not solely through coercion and might.  It's no longer possible to walk around with a big stick as the world's policeman.  Bush had nothing but contempt for the United Nations (hence his nomination of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador the the UN).  As the world's sole remaining super-power he believed we should answer to no one.  

Well, we've tried it his way.  How'd that work out?   

Maybe answering to the international community is exactly what is called for right about now.  Thanks, W.  You may go now.  History is waiting.

40 Days and Nights

Then Obama was led up by the Spirit into the desert of central Pennsylvania, between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, to be excoriated by the Clintons.  And he campaigned forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was bloodied.  And Hillary came and said to him, "If you are a worthy nominee, denounce these words of your spiritual mentor."  But he answered, "I will not.  Judge not by 30-second, YouTube sound bytes alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of Reverend Wright."

Do the six weeks between the Mississippi and Pennsylvania primaries feel like the longest forty days since Jesus wandered into the Judean wilderness, or is it just me?  Who's responsible for the scheduling around here?  March 11 to April 22?  That is simply too much time for these two candidates to fill without resorting to potshots, flights of fancy, and name-calling.  Our primary system isn't set up to handle this much downtime.  We need a caucus or primary every ten days -- two weeks, tops -- to blow off the steam built up by the media's micro-coverage of the hand-to-hand combat between the campaigns.

Let's face it.  The journey from Mississippi to Pennsylvania (with the sole exception of Obama's reluctant speech on race in Philadelphia) hasn't been kind to either candidate's image.  It's turned into a political Bataan Death March, a battle of attrition as Barack and Hillary trade weary haymakers and ineffective counter-punches.  

Clinton's multiple recollections of her landing in Tuzla, Bosnia after evasive maneuvers, and their subsequent scramble to avoid sniper fire on the tarmac, are not supported by video evidence.  Millions have now watched her accepting flowers and strolling among the assembled honorary troops when she was supposed to be running for safety.  

How far does Hillary think she has to go with this tough-enough-to-be-commander-in-chief facade?  She clearly voted to authorize a war she didn't believe in as a cynical attempt to raise her perceived testosterone level for an upcoming run at the presidency.  She continues to align herself with McCain as the only two candidates who have somehow cleared the ready-to-lead bar.  Now this fiasco.  The scary thing is, I'm not sure she doesn't believe her story.  I'm afraid  she sees herself as some sort of Robert Duvall figure, a Lieutenant Colonel Billory Kilgore in a pantsuit, standing tall on the tarmac, hands on hips, while those around her duck and cover, bullets whizzing every which way, as she gazes out towards the snow-capped hills surrounding the city and barks, "Charlie don't ski!"  

Then there's the embarrassment of watching her cast moral judgement upon Obama for his sticking by Rev. Wright as his pastor and the man who introduced him to Christianity.  Man, if there's ever been a pot living in a glass house while calling the kettle black.  Who has she been hanging out with for the past thirty-seven years?  I keep expecting Michelle Obama, never one to bite her tongue, to reference Paula Jones and Marilyn Jo Jenkins and Monica Lewinsky et al,  and reply to Hillary's, "He would not have been my pastor," comment with, "Well, he would not have been my husband."  But I guess some folks understand that certain relationships are none of their business.

Obama hasn't come through this unmarked, himself.  There was a certain amount of disingenuity to the way he approached the Wright controversy.  He insisted that he hadn't actually ever been in a Trinity United pew when Wright delivered any of his incendiary sermons.  Only as it became increasing likely that evidence to the contrary would surface did he relent and admit that, yes, he had been present for some of Wright's controversial remarks.  To his credit, he then defended the body of Wright's work and deftly turned the controversy into an opportunity to address race in the big picture, but it had to be a tad deflating to the true believers, nonetheless.  He could have gotten out in front of it earlier (like when he announced his candidacy).  What, he didn't see this coming?  Hard to believe.

And, oh yes, almost forgotten but not gone is poor John McCain.  He's spent the intermission  trolling around aimlessly, like a barracuda in an empty swimming pool, looking for someone to bite.  His handlers don't want him wasting any good ammunition on either Democrat right now.  He couldn't do anywhere near the damage they're managing themselves.  Absent a foe, he's reduced to discussing policy.  Some of which, unavoidably, is domestic.  And which includes, most unfortunately for McCain, the economy.  A subject he has readily admitted he doesn't understand.  

His confusion sometimes leaves him at odds with himself.  This week, Obama and Clinton both released their plans to deal with the sub-prime mortgage crisis.  Both favor government rescue plans for homeowners that would cost in the neighborhood of $30 billion.  McCain's pull-his-cord-and-hear-him-talk reaction was, predictably, "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who acted irresponsibly."  Right.  Take personal responsibility, let the markets decide, et cetera, et cetera.  Yet, he's firmly behind the Fed's decision to lend Wall Street firms, hip-deep in guano as their high-risk pigeons come home to roost, up to $400 billion at bargain basement rates to bail them out after they've created this mess.  Classic supply-side reasoning.  

McCain's trouble is, he's not Ronald Reagan.  It was Reagan's peculiar genius that he could get up in front of an audience of regular Americans, the middle-class and even the poor , be it in a church parking lot or on national television, look them in the eye and sell them on his "it's morning in America" fantasy.  That everyone who was willing to work hard was going to wind up rich.  It's what kept him in office for eight years -- people voting against their own economic interests.

Well, I don't think McCain can pull that off.  Times are rough and they're about to get a whole lot rougher.  He's going to have to come up with more than Bush's tax cuts to defeat either Clinton or Obama.  

Unless they finish each other off in Pennsylvania.  Twenty-five more days.  Jesus.