September 2008 Archives

People often believe that pundits have no idea what they're talking about. Speaking personally, this is not true. I may be wrong but I'm usually pretty well informed and have an educated opinion. This financial mess however reduces me to informed agnosticism. I've read, listened, pondered and scribbled but I still am unsure of the best way out. I don't know whether to coddle Wall Street, throttle them, or both.

We are all, I think, in agreement that the mess is real and not staged for political gain--since no one seems to be winning. The administration's view is if you trust them with $700 billion bucks they do good things and save us. The populist view is: Are you nuts?! A blank check and trust you? Ha, I don't think so. The liberal position is: I hate this but we must, at all costs, avoid a total collapse. The conservative position is: Why would we reward failure?

Strangely, though this is being played in a poisonously partisan manner, the first congressional vote was pretty interesting. The Democrats did not deliver the majority of the Black Caucus and local liberals, Schiff, Sherman and the Sanchez sisters all voted against it. On the other hand some true blue rock ribbed conservatives voted for it--Dreier being one.

As special interest projects get added in order to attract votes, the once three-page proposal has grown like, well, the deficit and soon will be completely beyond the comprehension of mortals. This is sausage making at its very messiest. Shall we put the money in at the top and give it to the failed institutions that be our houses and lost? Shall we put the money in at the bottom and help the poor and middle class people who made a reasonable if wrong bet that their homes would continue to increase in value? Shall we hand it all to Sec Paulson who once led Goldman Sachs and wonder if his loyalty played a part in letting competitor Lehman Brothers sink while rescuing AIG that owed billions to Goldman Sachs?

Part of what make the fix so difficult is its scale, the shear enormity of it all. But part is also the intentional mystification of finances. Once upon a time the bank lent you money. You had a problem or issue, you could talk to your banker. Now the bank sells the paper. The person who made the loan makes money only when lending it. He or she is separated from the people who own the debt. The debt is, in fact, sold, sliced, diced, recombined and sold as a security. Well, a false security as it turns out.

As both people and institutions lose confidence in the ability to collect these debts, they stop lending money both to us and each other. The wheels of commerce grind to a halt without the lubricant of credit. We know we have to do something. We cannot be sure what. We have no real and reliable model. Not even the Great Depression. We spent our way out of that with money we didn't have and a world war. We have borrowed and spent our way into this with money we don't have and two smaller wars.

I long for clarity, for the times when I could say with some assurance (even false) this is what we must do. Instead I confess this is a mess that people smarter than I got us into and I don't trust anyone who claims to know how to get us out. I am willing to pay any price--but only for something that will work. Ay there's the rub when pundits are unsure and uncharacteristically modest.

[Open sarcasm.]

We have this as further evidence that liberals and women are sexists. That may be redundant, but in any event we provide you with this news from Bloomberg:

fewer women than men said they were more likely to vote Republican because of [Sarah Palin's] presence on the ticket, and a plurality of female voters said she was unqualified to be president; men were evenly split.

Perhaps all liberals and women need to become Republicans, so that they can embrace a long tradition of standing up against sexism toward the Sarah Palins of the world.

[Close sarcasm....]

With politicians bailing out of the bailout bill, we saw the end of an era. Oh, the era of narrow partisan interests will continue. The era of politicians voting in their short-term interests and not those of "We the People" will surely continue. What has changed is that with the repudiation of their own leadership both Republicans and Democrats have wounded their leaders beyond saving. Add to this the increasingly irrelevant president (What's his name?), and we have a real transition--possibly to chaos.

Bush could not marshal his own troops. He couldn't influence his own congressional leaders. He got more Democrats than Republicans. He is a spent force with no real friends left on either side of the aisle. He, however, was already on his way out--timed out by term limits and political poison for current candidates for congress, the senate and McCain.

The surprise loser from this debacle is clearly Nancy Pelosi, who following a stunningly inept impulse, blew the possible compromise out of the water with a partisan indictment of Bush and the Republicans. I will not fault her on issues of fact, but how tone-deaf and stupid do you have to be to have worked for compromise around the clock with people who fundamentally disagree with you and then, only moments before the vote, attack them for past sins of commission and omission?

Rule one of politics and negotiations is really quite simple: Stab your adversary in the back after you have gotten what you wanted. She stabbed them in the front before they could deliver. She ought to be removed and find a quiet retirement with W. I assume, but don't know, that as professionals they counted the house before the vote. You really don't want to vote without knowing the outcome. That counting clearly took place before Pelosi's screed. What an incredible political miscalculation and disaster.

Yes, Republicans are using her as a convenient excuse for voting their well-founded fears of their own constituencies. But there is no question that her rant cost the bailout bill valuable votes. There is also no question that her lack of leadership was manifest in all the Democratic defections. She gets a twofer, a double F grade for alienating potential transitory Republican allies and failing to round up her own team--particularly from the Black Caucus and western Hispanics.

Our political leadership is on both sides shameful, inept and self-indulgent. Even if the bill is brought back from the grave and passes, this is really the time for a change of leadership for both parties.

A number of pastors have declared, here, that you cannot keep religious faith from expressing itself in the political realm.

Fair enough. Let pastors and clergy say whatever they want, and endorse whomever the Lord likes. But religious organizations as a whole don't need tax exempt status. It doesn't make sense for government to have to sweeten the pot for faith-based giving.

I even say this as a former board member of a religious congregation and as a former chairman of a religiously affiliated nonprofit community group.

September 15 was a rare day for Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain. They both lambasted the greedy and corrupt (their words) Wall Street wheeler dealers for wreaking financial mayhem and pain on Main Street. The tough talk grabbed headlines and made the two contenders sound like the proverbial men on the white horse populists ready to take on the Wall Street greed merchants.

There was one thing, however, conspicuously missing from their Wall Street saber rattle. They didn't name the names of the greedy and corrupt executives or the malfeasant companies they blamed for causing the pain and suffering. In the days after the financial meltdown, they kept up their Wall Street saber rattle, yet they still mentioned no names.
This was no politically absent minded oversight. The prime culprits in the financial mess are prime players on Team Obama and Team McCain. They are prime team players even after the roaring financial Tsushima has hit.
Team McCain's Wall Street players have bundled nearly $80 million in campaign contributions. That's nearly 60 percent of his campaign funds.

Here's a very partial list of Team McCain Wall Street Team players all of whom have been deeply implicated in dubious subprime lending, stock swaps and trading and buys, credit manipulations, and influence peddling:

• Citigroup Inc $145,050
• Blank Rome LLP - $141,400
• Greenberg Traurig - $129,987
• Merrill Lynch--$119,675
• Goldman Sachs $111,050
• IDT Corp $80,150
• Pinnacle West Capital $77,850
• Bank of New York Mellon $74,000
• JP Morgan Chase & Co $72,100
• Credit Suisse Group $63,350
• Lehman Brothers ($61,450
• Bridgewater Assoc $58,300
• Cisco Systems $56,850
• Wachovia Corp $52,100
• Morgan Stanley - $51,950

Team Obama has matched and in some cases exceeded Team McCain in the mad dash to bundle cash from Wall Street with one even more troubling note. In a hard nosed campaign back speech in San Antonio in February he blasted a top executive of a major subprime lender for getting an obscene severance package while millions were facing home foreclosures. The inference was that Obama would crackdown on subprime lending offenders.

The same week this writer called for Obama to prove it by dumping Team Obama finance chair Penny Pritzker. Pritzker is the former CEO of the defunct Superior Bank. The bank was knee deep in the subprime lending scam that put thousands of mostly poor and minority home borrowers in Chicago in deep hock. The Obama campaign responded that Pritzker was not charged or accused of any criminal wrongdoing, and the Pritzker family entered into a voluntary settlement and agreed to pay the government $460 million to defray its losses. Pritzker stayed and continues to bundle millions from her banking and financial pals for the Obama campaign.
But she's only one of Team Obama questionable Wall Street players. Here's a partial list of the others:

• Theodore Janulis - Bundler (over $50,000) & Lehman Brothers Head of Global Mortgages
• Francisco Borges - Bundler (over $50,000) and Chairman of Landmark Partners a private equity real estate firm.
• Nadja Fidelia - Bundler (over $50,000) & Managing Director of Lehman brothers
• Michael Froman - Bundler (over $50,000) & Managing Director of Citigroup
• David Heller - Bundler (over $200,000) & Managing Director of Goldman Sachs
• John Rhea - Bundler & Co-head of Lehman Brothers Global Investment Banking
• J. Michael Schell - Bundler (over $100,000) & Managing Director at Citigroup
• Jim Torrey - Bundler (over $200,000) and founder of the Torrey Funds - Hedge Funds
• Todd Williams - Bundler (over $50,000) & Managing Director Goldman Sachs & The Real Estate Council
• Tom Wheeler, Capital Partners, $100,000
• Stanley O'Neal, former Chairman of Merrill Lynch $4,600
• Brad Morrice, the former CEO and President of the imploded subprime lender, New Century Financial $4,600
• Dozens of Lehman Brothers Executives, such as CEO Richard Fuld President Joseph Gregory have kicked in tens of thousands to his campaign.
• Eric Schwartz, the co-head of Goldman-Sachs Global Asset Management has helped raise over $50,000.
• Robert Wolf, the CEO of UBS Americas helped raise more than $200,000
• Louis Susman, the Chairman of a Citibank subsidiary raised roughly the same amount.

None of Team Obama and Team McCain's Wall Street bundlers, direct depositors, and advisors has been charged with any crimes. The contenders have the right to take or bundle money from any legitimate source, including Wall Street. But there are two problems with their Wall Street team members. One the heavy cash from them makes it hard to believe that McCain and Obama's tough talk about Wall Street greed, corruption and even crackdowns is anything more than a play to the gate campaign talk.

The bigger problem is this. In the months after the election other big brokerage and investment houses, a bank or an S&L, auto manufacturers, and the airlines may line up with their hands extended in supplication to the White House (read: taxpayers) for help. Given the heavy cash the Wall Street players have dumped into Team Obama and Team McCain's coffers, will or even can whichever one bags the White House do more than talk tough about cracking down on Wall Street?

Sherlock Holmes and the evil professor Moriarty are locked in a death struggle atop the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. Neither man can back away. Neither can allow his adversary to survive, and so they make an un-spoken compact to go over the falls together. Flash forward to the Republicans and Democrats today. Animated by animus, they are locked in a pact of mutually assured destruction MAD, and I wouldn't personally object except that they are taking us with them. Which party is Holmes and which Moriarty? We can debate this with all the ferocity of the partisans themselves, but the bottom line is, well, the bottom of the chasm into which we may be falling.

Watching the sides fight for partisan advantage over silly things is silly and we can laugh at a week of nothing but lipstick stories and controversies over whether being able to see Russia makes you a Russia expert any more than looking at the moon makes you an astronaut. Although Condi Rice as a bona fide Russia expert does give expertise a bad name.

Our financial crisis is serious stuff. President Bush characterized it as "a serious crisis." Crisis, in my mind at least, pretty much implies seriousness. Can there be trivial crises? The stock market is falling, banks are failing and brokerages are broke. Insurance companies cannot offer credible assurance that they can pay off claims. And no one is offering credit.

The fix for all of these institutions that have spent money on houses, businesses and pieces of paper that no longer have the value they once might have had is for the government--or We the People--to buy these pieces of paper with money we also do not have. This is a Ponzi Scheme being financed by another Ponzi Scheme.

The sky is falling and it isn't the 18 million pieces of either Hillary's or Sarah's glass ceiling. It is raining mid-level banking, brokerage and insurance executives. The high-ranking ones are floating nicely on their golden parachutes. The rest of us are being buried by worthless paper, promises and partisan pontificating.

Both parties are motivated by fear. If they do nothing and we hit bottom, who will get blamed? If they do something and it works, who will get credit. If they do something and it still doesn't work, how can they avoid being connected to failure. Anyone thinking of We the People and not themselves? Easy question. Easy answer: No.

Locked in a contentious embrace, we all teeter on the edge of the abyss. If we fall, we will meet a common fate. But till then we can argue on the way down. We may not survive but Switzerland should do just fine

China is remarkable. Not only are they catching up to us economically and scientifically, but they are ahead of us in time travel. Yes, I know they are many time zones ahead of us--and they cover many time zones themselves--but I'm not talking about our idea of temporal time. Apparently they can tell the future and report of events before they happen in our ordinary dimension. They are scheduled to launch a rocket with astronauts on board sometimes today, but at least 12 hours in advance of the launch they not only reported its success but also posted a transcription of what the elated astronauts said during the launch and upon entering orbit. Wow! They are ahead of us indeed.

Back in the day, before we started saying back in the day, in the field of International Relations we had the saying. That the optimists studied Russian and the pessimists studied Chinese. Even 40 years ago we had a well-founded anxiety over what would happen when the sleeping giant really awoke.

Now, I have always had a great love and respect for Chinese food. Being in international relations I have had respect for their amazing and growing power--if not how they use and abuse it. I, as others, have been awed by the growth of their industry and economy--even at the cost of their environment and health.

I have been deeply grateful that they financed our financial debacle and enabled our own irresponsibility. Had they done this is a half-hearted manner, we would be in far greater trouble than we already are (which is considerable). But they went whole hog; they bought up everything. Some people were worried about their influence and control. Some thought we were vulnerable. But no. There is another old saying that if you owe your banker a thousand dollars, the banker owns you. But if you owe your banker a couple of million dollars, you own the banker and the bank. We are so in debt to the Chinese that they cannot sell us out without losing their own equity. Cool, huh?

The Liberal columnist and economist Paul Krugman remarked earlier this week that people complained that we didn't have a level and fair trade relationship with China. But he held that this was untrue. He said, "They send us poison food and lead-covered toys and we send them worthless pieces of paper."

Were they really able to travel to the future they might have both avoided this trap of their making and we might have avoided the mess we're in. However, we are not in the co-dependant relationship together and for the foreseeable future, we need each other. Of course, given that they reported events today in advance of reality, they might foresee the future before we do.

Our Daily News and Friendly Fire colleague, Rob Asghar, had a very frighteningly close call. He shares a brief version in his blog: (Almost) Having a Blast in Pakistan. He'd gone back to Pakistan for his father's memorial service. On his way to dinner at the Chinese restaurant in the Marriott in Islamabad, he had second thoughts about their prices and, thank God, went elsewhere. Such are the little decisions that spell life and death as we stumble through life. Were he a rich man, he might be a dead man.

Upon hearing of his father's death, I'd sent Rob a condolence email and heard back from him in an email from Islamabad. I replied to him, logged out and went to bed. In the morning I read the news of the Marriott bombing and the, at the time, 40 known dead. Given that this is where Americans stay and congregate, I was concerned and wrote Rob asking him to check in. In the 20 hours until I heard from him, I kept trying to find him. I checked the State Department website. Nothing. I went to the Embassy website in Islamabad. Nothing. I checked with our press relations embassy guy. Nothing. I scoured AP and Reuters, BBC and CNN. No names. Just the same story re-written by a dozen news organizations quoting the same witnesses and same spokesmen--half of whom are named Asghar. Who knew that his name is virtually Smith in Pakistan? Needless to say, I was hugely relieved when Rob finally checked in with me.

Now what is important here are two related and seemingly contradictory facts. I do not know Rob well. (I plan on remedying this). We have had lunch together a couple of times and exchanged emails concerning columns and Friendly Fire blogs. I have immense respect for his talent, his wisdom and his open mind and open heart. Still, he is not a close social friend. None-the-less, I spent an anxious day and night worrying about him.

But this is not about my sensitivity. This is about all the people who have sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers in harms way. My take-away from my own anxiety and discomfort concerning Rob is how unimaginable it must be for my friends who have loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, every parent or grandparent worries when we hear an ambulance go by and the kids are not with us. But what of the real clear and present danger to all those who serve in the world's many hotspots? How do they sleep at night? How do they function during the day?

I make no political or strategic point here--only a human one. We worry about our soldiers and Foreign Service officers and pray for them--as we should. Now I know to open my heart and include in my prayers all whose heartstrings connect them to each other and those who serve across the world.

Hello from Pakistan, where my family came in the wake of my father's passing last week. My brother and I were en route to the Marriot hotel Saturday night, to have dinner at their famed Dynasty Chinese restaurant, when I diverted us due to my feeling it was overpriced.

At a cheaper Chinese restaurant a few miles away, the Marriot bomb blast rattled the windows and forced us to rush back home. The bottom line is that the Dynasty restaurant was immediately in front of where the explosives-wielding truck detonated. We'd have had no chance. We were saved by my cheapskatedness.

When I return in a few days, I'll offer some personal thoughts on what many political observers call "he most dangerous place on earth."

Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama jumped all over the economy in a two minute nationally paid campaign broadcast billed as a "presidential style" talk to the nation. There wasn't much new in his talk. He again vowed to cut taxes, clean up Wall Street, and create lots of jobs for everybody. Obama aimed at firmly seizing back the high ground on the one issue that supposedly is his sure fire pathway to the White House, and that's economic misery, Bush-GOP caused economic misery that is. It's a play on the old political truism, it's the economy, stupid that wins or loses presidential elections.

From day one of the campaign the enshrined article of political faith has been that voters are so furious at Bush for causing massive plant closings, farm failures, corporate bungling, fraud and corruption, the housing collapse, soaring gas prices, and the wholesale flight of jobs to the far corners of the planet, that all a Democratic presidential contender had to do to win was pass the breath test on Election Day. It's not that simple. It's not always the economy that makes or breaks presidents. In a look at how six of eight presidents fared since 1948 when the economy hit the skids or appeared to skid, the scorecard for presidents winning and losing because of economic woe is a draw. Three were beaten and three beat back their challengers. It came down to whether voters really perceived that their economic plight, pain if you will, would show no sign of a cure if they kept the incumbent in office.

Both Republican and Democratic presidents won and lost even when there was widespread public unease over the economy and many voters believed things wouldn't get any better. The presidents who won had to do one crucial thing in the face of rising unemployment, recession, inflation, and public grumbles. They had to assure a majority of voters that things would and could get better with them if they stayed in the White House and their opponent couldn't do any better.

That combination of real and voter perceived economic woe helped sink Presidents Gerald Ford and Bush Sr. It helped and hurt Carter. It helped when the economy went bad for Ford in 1976 allowing Carter to win a narrow victory over Ford. The trick is that voters have to perceive things will get worse in which case the challenger to a sitting president has to reinforce public dread that things will indeed get worse.

Four years later, when the economy went bad for Carter, Reagan won in a near landslide. The exact reverse was true for Reagan and Bill Clinton. Reagan's supply side economics and big tax cuts were credited with igniting a mid-1980s economic boom. Clinton's tax hike, deficit reduction program, and investment stimulus program, was credited with turning a record deficit into a record surplus and adding millions of new jobs to the rolls.

As Reagan's vice president, Bush Sr. benefited from his economic policies. In 1988, he won the election. Four years later, when things turned sour he lost. The more important thing is not just a bad economy but at what point the economy turns bad in the life of the administration, and the public perception that things will get better or worse. The downturn for Bush Sr. came during the last two years of his term. Voters are much more likely to blame and punish a president if they go to the polls with economic doubts fresh in their minds.

Bush Sr.'s history then did not repeat itself with Bush Jr. in the 2004 election. Even though unemployment was high, and economic growth, as Democrats gleefully noted, was slower than during Clinton's second term, the Clinton bar was impossibly high to match anyway. By all economic standards, his economic track record was the best of any of the last five presidents. Even by his inflated standard, and despite the industrial erosion in some sections of the country, during the last two years of Bush's first term, overall unemployment and economic growth still slightly improved. This was the powerful spur that Bush used to spin news, even bad economic news, as a gain. He solemnly pledged there would be more economic goodies for voters if he was reelected.
If those economic negatives had hit harder in his last two years, as it did with his father, it would have been Kerry's ticket to the White House.

Things though seem to have gotten worse in the twilight hours of the Bush presidency. And Obama will hammer that point home. But McCain will try to do the same. If he can create enough doubt about who's really to blame, and that he can reverse the economic free fall as well as Obama, the election again may not be the economy stupid.

I don't disagree with either Earl or Jonathan. But with all due respect, if we're handing out blame on the country's financial meltdown, the Baby Boomers ought to own some of it. It's easy to rage against the nameless "government" for deregulation and policies that created greed to rule over sanity in the stock market, even while pushing more regular Americans into it with their retirement savings.

But there were actual people, making actual choices for years that built this house of cards. And many of them were Baby Boomers (and Boomer adjacents) both individually and collectively as voters.

The foundation of this crisis, which Earl points out, is greed. But you can't blame that on Wall Street alone; it needs greed to operate properly. It also needs mome healthy oversight, which the country's leaders failed to provide for a long time. The problem was compounded by the fact that in the last couple of decades accumulation of wealth has become the main measure of personal success entire society, not by one's quality of life, happiness, family or love Is it a surprise that the term "latchkey kid" was made popular in the 80s, the same decade of the "greed is good" mantra from "Wall Street" seemed to shape our national policy? Not to this latchkey kid.

Perhaps I'm a little harsh on my elders, but how is it they left their children -- and their grandchildren -- with such a financial mess? And it will get worse. Boomer are about to suck Social Security dry, leaving the younger Gen Xers to survive with our skeletal 401(k) accounts (I can't even look at the statements right now), massive mortgages and the burden of billions in bailout costs. Thanks Mom and Dad! Serves them right if I have to move back in.

Is is any wonder that people are so excited about Obama and Palin, the"inexperienced youngsters in this presidential race, while paying little attention to McCain and Biden the "wrinkely white-haired dudes" who were part of the power structure that brought us here?

Take the Ronald Reagan test of "Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?" After 8 years, the results, across the board, are devastating and should be embarrassing. A surplus has been turned into a major deficit. The national debt has doubled. The economy is broken. The "fundamentals" are not what McCain is trying to define as the work ethic and creativity of the American people. The fundamentals are the structures and institutions that make things and create services. Our banks are failing. Our insurance is unlikely to pay off. Our 401Ks are losing value. The equity in our homes is shrinking. Our pension benefits are in danger.

The essential philosophy of deregulation shared by Bush, McCain and the conservatives, along with an irrational faith in the free market, have brought rust to our automobile industry and 50% rise nationally in unemployment (so far). Our automobile industry is in need of bail out; our banks, brokerages and insurance companies have already bailed with only the CEOs having parachutes. Appropriately, our airlines also demand a bail out. How can anyone not bail out of these failed policies and philosophies?

These so-called conservatives have spent us into a hole and lowered taxes on the rich, while the stagnation of wages for the middle and lower classes are, in effect, a tax on them--reducing their spending power by some $2,000 per year.

The Republicans cannot win on the issues. They can only win on fear. They are trying mightily but the middle class cannot buy this quadrennial masquerade when the plutocrats dress in middleclass drag pretending to be simple folk, while claiming that the black son of a single mother represents the elite. Even the wealthy are losing heart as their assets also diminish. They have no record on which to run and no plan to bring us peace or prosperity. Their entire platform and strategy is: Be afraid of Obama.

In rapid succession here's how my (me the taxpayer) pocket has been picked: $30 billion to Bears Stearns, $200 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, $85 billion to AIG. It gets better. Waiting in line with their hands out are the automakers (possible $50 billion payout) and the airlines (literally the sky is the limit on that one). The corporate bunglers, cheats, and plunderers saber rattle me with if you don't give us the dough, kiss away housing and business loans, your pension funds and 401 K plans, health insurance, and thousands of jobs.

The government shills for this doomsday scenario while steadily lightening my pocket until the next bad behaving corporate hand is held out to lighten it even more. And make no mistake there will be a next time, and why not? If I knew that I could blow someone else's money and when the inevitable happened and it's gone, get even more to blow, why not? I'd stick my hand out too for more more more.

If I knew my reward for being inept, irresponsible, profligate, and flat out corrupt in the rush to fatten my bank account and damn the consequences I'd be a giddy supplicant too. But I'm not, so the message then to the government is remember Nancy Reagan's immortal words, just say no to the corporate bunglers and greed merchants!

Our former Daily News and Friendly Fire colleague Chris Weinkopf might have moved on, but he still loves to share the silly things found online. He sent along this video today that someone with too much time on his or her hands crafted. If you don't know what Rickrolling is, read this description before you play the video. Then enjoy.

Thanks Chris. We all miss you.

The New York Post is no friend of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Any knock of Obama by its editorial writers and op-ed columnists should be taken with the whole bag of salt. That's likely the case with this stunning allegation that's making its way around the internet courtesy of Post Columnist Amir Taheri. He alleges that in a private talk with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari during his visit to Iraq in July, Obama allegedly tried to talk Zebari and other Iraqi leaders into stalling the phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.

The alleged reason for the Obama request for a foot drag on troop withdrawal says Taheri was to give him an election boost. The Post's Taheri allegedly says that Zebari says Obama put it this way, "He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the U.S. elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington." If true, this would be politically duplicitous and cynical election tact. It would be a huge body blow to Obama in light of his oft repeated mantra that he wants the troops out of Iraq as quickly as militarily possible.

Obama has at times shaded the mantra and said that he'd rely on the commanders on the ground to determine the pace of the withdrawal. But even that wouldn't make the charge any less damaging to his credibility on Iraq--again if the charge is true.
The Iranian-born Taheri who reports the alleged "private" conversation between Obama and Zebari has been roundly and repeatedly slammed as a rabid, political ax grinding neo-con shill. He may well be that and more. Still, the charge is out there, so Team Obama please say that it's nonsense.

That's what he's hoping. Steve Poizner, the California Insurance Commissioner, today announced he launching a 2010 gubernatorial exploratory committee.

I announced this at large to the office to which one of my intelligent and fairly well-versed co-workers said, "I don't even know who he is."

Ouch.

Though he's gotten a fair amount of positive press for his only two years in office, Poizner's doesn't have near the name recognition of the two presumed Democratic candidates in the race, San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. On the plus side, he's got a Silicon Valley fortune to help him out.

George Putnam: An Appreciation
©2008Jonathan Dobrer JonDobrer@mac.com
Being a local guy, I cannot remember a time without George Putnam. His death, though hardly shocking at 94, touches me at several levels--all of them personal.

I worked with Mr. Putnam for a time when we both had radio shows at KIEV, the call letters for 850 AM at that time. My show, Talkabout with Jonathan, followed his, Talkback with George Putnam. Given the conservative leanings of his show, I would occasionally kid him about being on a station named after a Soviet city. Yes, I know that Kiev is in the Ukraine, today an independent nation--at least for the moment.

My first time in the studio, he greeted me with his still booming voice, showing remarkable enthusiasm and energy for a man in his 80s. He was personally warm and helpful to me in learning the ropes of talk radio. He talked about how long calls should last and even explained the board to me, the anti-obscenity delay and kill button. He gave me welcome coaching in terminating calls without being rude. He was opinionated but gentlemanly at the same time. He was not one of those Joe Pyne "Go gargle razor blades" guys.

All the articles on his passing reference him as the model for the Ted Baxter character on the old Mary Tyler Moore show. He was certainly that. On TV, as a newscaster, he did change the pitch of his voice and take on a bass baritone solemnity when being serious. He also could lighten things up with, what he called a "cutie," a piece of cotton candy fluff to relieve the sour taste of hard news and tragedy. And yes, as Ted Baxter later copied, he would go up on his toes from time to time--as if to signal a change in the seriousness of the story.

He certainly had opinions and shared them freely on radio where he, as I, was in the opinion business. His great innovation on TV news was his commentary, his "One reporter's opinion." While all reporters have opinions, Putnam was intellectually honest and clearly labeled and separated his newscaster role from his personal thoughts.

Though most reports label him as a conservative, and that is mostly true; he was not a party-line kind of guy. A conservative on issues of the military and American interests, he was also a life-long registered Democrat and member of both the Urban League and the NAACP. He defied being easily defined. And he enjoyed his status of being difficult to capture in a simple and simplistic label.

Putnam was an icon, a perennial presence in Los Angeles news and talk. He was also a character who had character. I will miss him.

Let me be intellectually honest and disclose at the outset that I'm about to damn Sarah Palin with faint praise. She did just fine on her first interview and revealed probably more than she should have about her bellicosity. Her attitude seems to be the opposite of the old 60s bumper sticker, "War is NOT the Answer!" For her War is the Answer.

She did show that she understood the purpose and obligations of NATO membership and responded correctly that if Georgia were in NATO and were attacked by Russia we would be pledged to act as if we had been attacked. That Palin sounded bellicose and ready to rumble should give us pause, but she got the treaty obligations right. This is the actual obligation and a compelling reason to keep Georgia out of NATO.

The Russian incursion in Georgia has shaken the prestige of NATO to its roots. I don't think that too many serious people in Eastern Europe actually believe we would act as if our mainland had been attacked if Russia refused to surrender the Ukrainian port of Sebastopol. I do not see us retaliating militarily against Russia if they do what they have threatened to do and that is take out the anti-missile missiles we are planning on putting in Eastern Europe. Since we do not have a credible non-nuclear military, and are unlikely to go for nuclear war in response to a conventional insult, we are pretty toothless. And, bye the way, wouldn't we take out any Russian anti-missile system they put in Cuba?

However, the big knock on Palin's performance with Charlie Gibson was her hesitant response to the question on the "Bush Doctrine." She didn't know what it was and I'm on her side here. The question implied that Bush has a clear and coherent doctrine. This is not the case. Is the Bush Doctrine:
1. If we feel threatened we have the right to bomb you? []
2. If we think that you are planning some day to attack us, we can bomb you? []
3. If we think you are going to attack us soon, we can bomb you? []
4. Shoot now and ask questions later. []
5. Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here. []
6. All of the above. []
Gibson's question was vague and un-nuanced. Her response was both honest and telling. But most of all, it was frightening.

Here's my column today in the Providence Journal, suggesting that the so-called war on terror cannot be won.

It's a volatile argument, surely one that will be misunderstood by hawks and jingoists who resent nuance. For the most part, hawkish personalities in any society will latch on to reasons to condemn voices of reason as treasonous.

Yet those same hawks, as ostensibly small-government people, will laugh at the notion that you can win a war on drugs or a war on poverty. They claim that they are not pro-drugs and pro-poverty while making that case, and I hope they could see that the same applies when I say that you can't tangibly and permanently win a war on "terror" or on any other emotion or mood. (It doesn't help that our own definition of terror shifts every few years, depending on whether "freedom fighters" are fighting us or our rivals...)

Puh-leeeze. Suddenly Republicans are outraged by sexism, after years of telling feminists to "take a hike, sister." Good for Obama for not backing down.

It does make something clear, though. Conservatives who normally decry affirmative action will champion a woman or minority if that person is criticized for taking conservative positions.

In other words, conservatives don't hate the idea of a black being president. They hate the idea of a liberal being president. If an aggressively pro-life, hawkish black evangelical woman ran for president (Condi is slightly too liberal to qualify, and she's politically damaged anyway), the religious right would pile aboard the bandwagon, and would use rifles to pick off anyone who seemed to demean their good woman.

"The World Hasn't Ended" This has got to be my favorite headline ever. It appeared today, Wednesday September 10 in the Sun of London. This feel good story of the year--or maybe of all time--is referring to the physicists in Switzerland who turned on the Large Hadron Collider. This is a 17-mile long racetrack buried 256 feet underground and is designed for accelerating protons into each other and trying to replicate the Big Bang.

The original Big Bang is the "events horizon" for both science and religion past which we have not been able to see. It is the time before time, the moment between Let there Be Light and the Light. Intrepid scientists from all over the world are trying to get back to the first billionth of a second between the bang and the light that they believe happened some 14 billion years ago.*

Now you can easily see the problem here and understand some appropriate anxiety. I mean the Big Bang was, well, pretty big and came out of something infinitely small. In some ways it is still going on as the universe expands and even continues to accelerate. If our scientists created a competing Big Bang, you could well feel that you wouldn't want to be standing too close. While a whole new universe might be born, our immediate neighborhood might be undergoing some pretty extreme and violent urban renewal.

Of course you shouldn't feel completely relaxed--not yet. They haven't turned it up to full strength. This was just a partial power test. The full power test will come on October 21. Then we'll see what the headline will be on the following day. If there is a following day. Meanwhile this should have read: The World Hasn't Ended...Yet!

*Some non-scientists dispute the 14 billion year figure and put it at 6,000 years. And all due deference should be given to them.

I'm going to play devil's advocate, or Satan's Little Helper, here with Earl's contention that Obama should lay off Palin.

Democrats have been crushed in recent national elections because they won't fight hard. Republicans will and do fight mean, in shockingly below-the-belt ways.

Voters say they hate meanness, then they vote for the Republican who slandered and libeled the hapless, formerly frontrunning Democrat. Even though voters say they despise negative politics, it's pretty much the only thing they respond to.

Will this hurt Obama's image as a "new-wave" pol who's above the fray? Sure, but let's admit that this hasn't worked. It hasn't gotten him a significant lead over Hillary in the primaries or McCain in the generals.

What America wants is a fighter, not a lover. That's why McCain used the word "fight" a thousand times in his acceptance speech. And that's why Obama needs to sharpen his silver tongue, if I may steal a phrase. No one in America is more eloquent than Obama: if he can harness those words to punch out his rivals, Americans will sense that Obama can punch out Osama, or Ahmedinejand, or so on.

Finally, Obama can fight and not lose his young base, because, again, people like a good fight. Undecided voters who wanted a sweet president would be turned off by a punchy Obama, but diehards will love him for standing up for himself and for his principles.

He need not be Dukakis, he need not be Gore, he need not be Kerry. He needs to fight.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama should do two things about GOP vice presidential pick Sarah Palin. The first is repeat: "I'm running against John McCain and I'm running for president not Vice President." He should keep repeating that as many times as it takes to get him to back off the distracting, pointless, and self-absorbing amount of time he's spent knocking her. The strength of his appeal and campaign has always been that he's taken the political and ethical high ground. He's stuck to talking about the issues of tax cuts, the Iraq War, the economic meltdown, health care, the housing foreclosure scandal. He's resisted the mighty temptation to take personal slaps at McCain and even Bush. At no point has he stooped to low brow non-issue character assassination.

That changed when he shouted to a crowd in Flint, Michigan, "I mean, you can't just make stuff up. You can't just re-create yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself." He bit hard on the Palin bait and that's a bad thing. A candidate who spends inordinate time and energy trying to tar their opponent runs the same risk as an attorney or a prosecutor in a courtroom. They avoid at all costs being seen as too overly aggressive with a witness. It's called witness badgering and that's even more dangerous when the witness is a middle or working class mother. Bullying her can stir juror sympathy, even anger toward the attorney or the prosecutor, and it could cost them their case.
Palin is more than a GOP rival. To many she's the epitome of the struggling American mother. Millions of working class mothers will identify with her no matter what their views on abortion, creationism, or her experience or lack thereof. In other words, the bogeyman Obama creates in Palin could be someone else's bigger than life hero. One that's not easily deconstructed later. That's already happened. Packs of Hillary female supporters have expressed outrage at the Palin attacks. And polls show that more white women are shifting to McCain. A big reason: The loony Hate Palin attacks.
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The second thing Obama should do is to resend the message that he apparently sent in the first hours after McCain announced he'd picked Palin. When a top Team Obama member hammered Palin, Obama did the smart thing and simply congratulated her and then went back to talking about the issues. He's forgotten that and that's sent the subtle message that it's OK to fan every silly, unsubstantiated, salacious rumor mongering slander and slur that can be conjured up. With some of this stuff you don't know whether to howl with laughter or scream in disgust that presumably intelligent adults not only dignify but actually believe it. A website that exclusively lists and debunks Palin rumors http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/09/06/palin-rumors as of September 6 listed seventy-one Palin falsehoods. It warned that the number continues to grow exponentially by the hour

Here are some of the juicier Palin gems. Her Down Syndrome son is the result of incest between Hubby Todd and their daughter Bristol. Palin called Obama Sambo and Hillary Clinton the "B word." She had an illegitimate child by an African-American. She's an avid porn watcher. She had an affair with her husbands' business partner. Two of her daughters, Willow and Piper, are named after witches on TV. Her son Track who is leaving for Iraq joined the National Guard because he's a drug addict. Then there is the list of the by now Palin anti's. She's anti-black, Mormon, Semitic, American Indian, Catholic, Muslim, teaching evolution, funding special needs, and animal rights. The two jewels in the anti-Palin crown is that any book that doesn't conform to her alleged crackpot, fringe beliefs will be tossed in a roaring Nazi style public bonfire. The other Palin gem is that God willed the Iraq War.

In sane political times anyone even slightly past the age of reason wouldn't give this stuff a second's notice. It would be laughed away if it appeared on even the most extreme fringe websites. But these aren't sane political times. These are times when even the silliest, most outrageous, even grotesque gossip can quickly take on a life of its own.
In the days ahead it's almost certain that the cottage industry in Palin rumor mongering will grow even bigger and even more outlandish. This will stir even more disgust and anger among many of those who may not have an ounce of sympathy for Palin and the GOP. That in turn will put big smiles on Team McCain. Shrill and vile Palin hits deflect hits on McCain on the issues. They will give credence to the McCain camp's contention that Obama is desperate and will latch onto anything to smear an opponent. They will give even more credence to McCain's rail that the media is a big bad, sexist bully that delights in beating up on a poor, defenseless, mother and woman who just happens to be a presidential ticket candidate. Beating up on Palin is a lose lose for Obama.

Hard to believe that Sam Zell's Los Angeles Times would have a front-page story headline that is false, misleading, out of context and probably racist. Okay, not so hard to believe. It's just difficult to distinguish between sloppy and malign.

Front-page bottom right headline: "10% at King has criminal records." They were referring, of course, to King Drew Medical Center and Hospital. The story continues, "Of those (employees), 1,356 had their background examined, and 152 of those came back with criminal or arrest records." On the face of it, this seems pretty devastating. But the face of it is often Black or Brown--and that makes a critical difference in creating some context.

There is a world of difference in our society, at least in theory, between being arrested and being convicted. Being arrested does not constitute having a criminal record. We need to know how many were convicted of felonies, how many of misdemeanors and how many were never charged, indicted or prosecuted. The numbers may be bad, but from this story we don't know. Given the area and demographics, I'd like to know how many were arrested or detained for "driving while Black" or just hanging out.

Yes, apparently some lied on their applications forgetting having been arrested, but that is not as easy and obvious a line as one might think. Some juveniles are arrested and then promised that there will be no record if they stay clean till they're 18. How should they fill out an application? Does the arrest record, or even a sentencing record, really disappear? I don't know.

Frankly, I'm not too clear on my own arrest record. Having gone joy-riding when I was 12, I was given a "Scared Straight" tour of the Police station and lock up at Purdue in West Los Angeles. Had my youthful fling happened in South Central and not Brentwood, I'm pretty confident that it would have been more serious. I was told to stay clean till 18. I managed to do that. Then the civil rights era began. I have been hassled, detained and questioned but never booked. Do I have a record? I don't know about in LA, but I'm confident that there's an FBI file. In the unlikely event that I'm asked to fill out an application asking about arrests, what is my truthful answer?

Yes, we have a public interest in knowing if the people who work for our city and county and who take care of us in hospitals are bad people or career criminals. This story and its misleading headline did not do much to illuminate the issue only heat up a cauldron of racism.

There was the ever so fleeting moment during her speech at the Republican National Convention when Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin paid tribute to hubby Todd. She lightly mentioned that he's of Yup'ik Eskimo background. Todd Palin beamed with pride at the acknowledgement in front of the packed convention crowd and in front one of the largest TV audiences to ever watch a candidate's convention speech. But the cheering convention participants and millions of viewers won't see the same smiles on scores of other of Palin's Yup'ik Eskimos and many other Native Alaskans.
They make up nearly 20 percent of Alaska's population. A devastating report by the Alaska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 2002, " Racism's Frontier: The Untold Story of Discrimination and Division in Alaska" painted a picture of decades long economic misery, discrimination, neglect and alienation for Native Alaskans in Palin's state.

VP candidate Palin boasted that she squeezed the oil and gas industry for billions that have enriched the state's businesses, residents, and boosted employment in some communities. That prosperity hasn't touched many Native Alaskans. Overall one fifth of Native Alaskans are below the poverty line. In some rural villages their jobless rate tops 80 percent. Despite sheaths of anti-discrimination laws, and even an affirmative action plan for special needs military veterans, on the books in Alaska, discrimination against Native Alaskans is rampant.

The Alaska Human Rights Commission notes that discrimination complaints jumped more than fifty percent in a seven year period in the late 1990s. Many of those complaints didn't come from Native Alaskans. Native Alaskan leaders bluntly told civil a civil rights commission community forum in 2001 that they simply didn't trust the system.
Native Alaskans are more likely to be sicker and have less access to quality, affordable health care than whites. Their infant mortality is more than double that of whites. Their tuberculosis rate is more than twenty times higher than whites. Civil rights commission studies attributed the appalling health statistics to overcrowded and insufficiently ventilated housing, impure water supplies, inadequate waste disposal systems, and general malnutrition.

The racial disparities between Native Alaskans and whites are even more glaring in public education and the criminal justice system. Native Alaskans are slightly more than 12 percent of the state's public school students. They make up more than one quarter of school drop-outs, and are at rock bottom in their achievement scores in reading and math. Native Alaskans make up a paltry five percent of the teachers and administrators. Many of the students are taught exclusively by white teachers in grossly under-funded rural public schools. Many of the teachers have little understanding of or sensitivity to Aleut, Yup'ik, and Indian culture and language.

Then there are the soaring prison numbers. Native Alaskan males make up less than ten percent of the state's population, but are nearly forty percent of those behind bars. Despite the outsized disproportionate jail numbers, the civil rights commission found that Native Alaskans are underrepresented in jobs in the child welfare system, legal system, and juvenile justice system.
The criminal justice system disparities are a double edged sword for Native Alaskans. While they are far more likely to be incarcerated than whites, they are also far more likely than whites to suffer rape, domestic violence and homicide. Native Alaskans bitterly complain of laxity by the police and the courts in finding and punishing those who victimize Native Alaskans. Many homicides of Native Alaskans have remained unsolved.
The violence rate against Native Alaskans is so high that some violence prevention experts say that some of the crimes against Native Alaskans could be tagged as hate crimes. Alaska state legislators for a brief time toyed with the idea of enacting a hate crimes law with greater sentencing enhancements. That went nowhere. Even if the legislature had acted, Governor Palin gave a strong hint what its fate would likely be if it landed on her desk. During the 2006 gubernatorial campaign she told the Eagle Forum that she opposed expanded hate crime legislation. She branded all heinous crimes as hate crimes.
State Equal Rights Commission officials have complained that the legislature gutted the commission's budget and cut staff. Their complaints fell on deaf ears. Despite the well documented widespread discrimination and disparities against Native Alaskans there is no public record that Governor Palin has gone to bat for increased funding for the Commission.
In report on the plight of Native Alaskans, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission called for massive increases in spending on job and skills training and programs to boost employment, improve education and public services. The commission called for sweeping reforms in the criminal justice and health care systems. The recommendations were made four years before Palin took office. Other than a brief mention of diversity in her gubernatorial campaign speech in 2006, there is no evidence that Palin has said or done anything about the commission's recommendations. If she had it would have put a beam on the faces of thousands of Yup'ik Eskimos who aren't named Todd Palin.

"Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven."
-- Philippians 3:19-20

Those words of the apostle Paul were meant to remind the Christian residents of Philippi to rejoice in their shared religious identity, not in their identity as citizens of the magnificent Roman empire.

Somewhat in that vein, the motto of a conservative Christian university such as the local Azusa Pacific University is "God First." As such, I wonder if many persons of such a bent would see a tension between that and John McCain's "Country First" slogan. Couldn't that be a nationalistic form of idolatry? Especially when McCain spoke last night about how his country (not Jesus) "saved" him?

But I'm suspecting that many of the people chanting "USA, USA" last night think that, in the final analysis, it's hair-splitting to distinguish between love of God and love of country. And there are no Pauls in latter-day Christendom to correct them.

That explains much of the toxic, "good vs. evil" posturing in modern American politics.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Let's get real. Pundits can chatter until they're blue in the face about Sarah Palin as a political school girl novice, a disastrous pick, her daughter's baby woes, GOP family values hypocrisy, canning a brother in law cop, squandering tax payer dollars on a defense attorney. They can yak incessantly about her being foreign policy and national security dumb. They can keep blathering about how the GOP plucked her as an affirmative action, gender identity pick.

But the fact is Palin's on the ticket to do one thing and one thing only and that's to fire up the millions of men and women voters who demand that a GOP presidential candidate firmly oppose abortion. Abortion is the ultimate in emotional issues for women, and a fair number of men. If elections have shown anything, they turn as much on emotions as the issues, more times than not even more on emotions. Palin is that emotion. That's why she's on the ticket.