Occam’s Razor

Screwed and angry

If you want to know why Barack Obama is surging in the polls, it would be tempting to say that it is due to our current economic problems. That is it, of course, but it imparts little in the way of understanding. Obama is gaining in the polls, not so much because Americans are lining up behind his vision of hope, but because we are angry at being mislead and very scared about our future. I believe that on November 4th we are going to witness political vengeance on a scale we have not seen in at least a generation.

Why? Is it the falling worth of our stock portfolios? That is part of the calculus but just a minor factor. If you are like me though you realize that even great financial calamities eventually straighten themselves out. The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked at 380,330 in 1929. Three years later during the worst of the Great Depression it hit its nadir at 42,040, losing close to ninety percent of its value. Of course in 1929 when it was at 380,330 its value was grossly inflated. The same was true with our portfolios for the last few years. We are only now discovering their true value, and it is humbling. Investors in 1929 needed a lot of patience. An event of the magnitude of The Great Depression required decades for a full recovery. Yet recover we did and by 1955 the DJIA was back where it was in 1929. As shaky as these times are, I am convinced this economic crisis will not reach its scale. My point is that if you are a long-term investor you are going to do fine. It may take ten years to recover but it will not take twenty five. Arguably, if you intend to hold on to stocks for the long term this is a good time to buy.

It is the less financially fortunate people who are principally pushing up Obama’s poll numbers, as well as changing dynamics in Senate and House races nationwide. All sorts of incumbent Republicans are in danger. Take for example this poll by Survey USA showing the U.S. Senate race in the bright red state of Georgia essentially tied. Two weeks ago, the Democratic challenger Jim Martin was 17 points behind Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss. Now Martin is just two points behind. In the last two weeks, did Jim Martin show himself to be a better campaigner? While he got a bit more financial support, it is not hard to understand the real reason for the dramatic change in the polls: Black Monday. Only now is the pain of ordinary Americans becoming acute. When any pain becomes acute, the reflex is to move toward doing something differently. That explains Jim Martin’s rise in the polls.

It is becoming acute because ordinary Americans are probably not like me. For one thing, I am 51 and they are likely younger than me. This means that they are also likely overleveraged. They paid more for the same size house than I did, which means their house payments are probably a quarter to a half more than mine for the same house, but being younger they also likely earn less than I do. Now the value of their house has plummeted, perhaps down twenty five percent. In many if not most cases, these disgruntled voters now have negative net worth on their house but are still making payments for houses that cost a lot more. Their employment is more chancy, if they are not already among the recently laid off. To make matters worse, their 401(k)’s, their supposed nest egg for retirement, is down by at least the same amount, with no bottom in sight for the market. They are wondering if they will ever be able to afford to retire.

There are tens of millions of people like this. They are the ones who are going to take out their anger at the ballot box. They do not necessarily buy into the Democratic Party platform. They may be pro-life instead of pro-choice. They may be Christian conservatives and phobic about losing their gun rights. Yet for many of these people, their predispositions no longer matter. They are seeing their hopes for a better life disappear in front of their eyes. Not only are they paying for more for their house than they are worth, they no longer have any equity in their house. Consequently, cannot take out home equity loans to fix it up or to pay for their children’s college education. Their financial lives are now very chancy. Self reliance instead of being an elixir tastes like a bitter pill.

It is not just the middle class feeling like they are rapidly descending into the lower middle class. It is also the lower middle class and the poor who are also being squeezed so tight that if they were an orange, there would not be a drop of juice left. They have already been living paycheck to paycheck. Now they are finding times when they do not have enough food to eat. However, there is not necessarily enough food at the local food bank. Unsurprisingly, when times get tough they turn to government aid. One measure is the increase in the number of households using food stamps.

Their hope in Obama is a wan hope. It is a hope borne in part in desperation because there is no one else to turn to. All they know is that many of them voted in lockstep with our president and the Republicans in Congress only to find out that they were being led right off a cliff. They are rightfully angry because they feel they have been, and in fact are being used. It doesn’t take much looking around to figure out what happened. Wealth moved from them to those higher up the food chain. Meanwhile, risk was pushed down. Risk in owning stocks went down because the tax on capital gains and dividends went down. Yet taxes stayed about the same. What modest tax decreases that occurred at the federal level were replaced at the state and local level. From their perspective, the ownership society became the gamble it all economy. They had little other choice. They were just trying to survive.

While others with deeper pockets like me will get by with some grumbling, they are taking it on the chin now. There is nothing that looks like hope on the horizon. There is a slim hope that by shuffling the deck, they might get a better hand. Hence, they are placing their hope in a man named Barack Obama. They placed their trust in a philosophy that told them all they had to do was follow the path of free markets and self-reliance and all would turn golden. Instead, their trust was violated and their pockets were picked. No wonder Congressional phones were ringing off the hook from disgruntled voters unwilling to give Wall Street financiers a bailout. Clearly, no one in Congress was riding to their rescue.

Will the Democrats do a better job than the Republicans once in office? It would be hard to do a worse job but overall Democrats have not been stellar guardians of the public trust either, they just have tended historically to do a somewhat better overall job. Voters will have to be patient during 2009. Before real growth can recur, a lot of garbage needs to be hauled away.

Voters do seem to painfully understand one thing: regulation is good. Regulation does increase the size and cost of government, but when it works, it evens the playing field and ensures a level of transparency, which promotes fairness. It turns out that regulation is a lot like insurance, a painful necessity in life. (Wall Street’s financial wizards also saw the value of insurance, and tried to insure all their potential losses in the unregulated credit swap market. It looks like this lack of regulation and oversight was the root cause of the current financial calamity.)

We need more regulation and oversight of the financial industry. It is really that simple. If you learn nothing more from our disastrous experiment in laissez faire economics these last eight years, retain this: the government will be the nation’s de-facto insurer of last resort. We have to pay its premium, expensive as it may be, or we risk more of the economic calamity we are currently undergoing.

October 6th, 2008 at 07:56pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

The vice presidential debate

It seems like no matter how much we voters want lively debates from our presidential and vice presidential candidates, they won’t give them to us. Thursday’s vice presidential debate could have been interesting and informative. Instead, many of us watching it felt inclined to nod off instead.

If you watch clips of Sarah Palin and Joe Biden on the campaign trail, a lackluster debate would have been the last thing you would have expected. Like vice presidential candidates from time immemorial, both excel and attacking the other party’s presidential candidate using phrasing generally not permitted at the top of the ticket. And yet properly coached both Governor Palin and Senator Biden proved they could be mediocre speakers and debaters too.

Sarah Palin proved that given a sufficient number of cue cards she could speak on an issue without making any major gaffes provided she never strayed from approved talking points. Just to make sure she did not, at the start of the debate she imperiously announced that she was going to talk about what she wanted to talk about, whether or not it had anything to do with moderator Gwen Ifill’s questions. If this were a high school speech and debate competition, she would have been unceremoniously pulled off the team and sent home to mother. That this happened in a national debate should have been excruciatingly embarrassing. Clearly, the McCain campaign saw this approach as the lesser of two evils. Better for her to say convincingly what she had been coached to say, even if it held no relevance to the question at hand, than to stray into areas for which she had been insufficiently coached.

I guess no courses in Greek Literature were required for Mrs. Palin to graduate either college or high school. If she did have such a course, I have to assume she flunked it. This was clear when she was asked about her Achilles Heel and it was obvious that she had no idea what Gwen Ifill was talking about. So instead, she started talking about what she perceived as her good points!

As for Joe Biden, he was a small shadow of the man he is on the campaign trail. While he avoided his tendency to make gaffes, a gaffe or two might have enlivened the debate a bit. Biden is at his best when his dander is up and he is speaking from the heart, as this video documents. In this debate, he hardly raised his voice at all and stayed strictly on message. As a result, it was hard not to perceive him as just another boring white male vice presidential pick. His face looked washed out and his eyes drooped, perhaps a result of all the bright lights focused in his face. Of the two, he came across as more sober and presidential. Given that he was debating Sarah Palin it would have been impossible not to come across as more presidential.

Palin at least seemed alive. She was all perkiness and spunk. It was good to see her in some other color than red. All her coaching though could not mask a head that at best was only half full. This, of course, was exactly why the McCain campaign insisted on altering the debate rules so that notes were allowed and response times were minimized. It is no wonder that after seeing the debate that a majority of those polled said she was not ready to be president. She made Dan Quayle look brilliant. Still, there are plenty of voters who prefer attitude to substance. It is nice that she can identify so well with Wal-Mart shoppers and hockey moms. If I were a hockey mom, I might be offended to be linked with her because those I know are a whole lot more interesting and intellectually curious.

Again, not that it matters, but polls suggested that Biden “won” the debate, although in a debate this lackluster simply showing up and sounding reasonably coherent is all it takes. No vice presidential debate has yet proven to be a game changer. This one will not be either. To the extent that it helps anyone, it will help Barack Obama. Any up tick in Obama’s poll numbers this week will likely have much more to do with our disastrous economic situation than Palin’s deficiencies or Biden’s superior but lackluster debate performance.

I feel bad for moderator Gwen Ifill. It seems to me that Sarah Palin disrespected her and the Commission on Presidential Debates by her refusal to answer certain questions addressed to her. As a result, we learned little about Palin’s positions but plenty about her character. We learned enough to know that underneath her cheerleader façade is an obstinate and intellectually incurious woman. That was about the extent to which this debate was useful.

October 4th, 2008 at 08:28am Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

The first debate

My thanks to my friend Renee, who invited a whole bunch of us over to her house last night to watch the first presidential debate between Senators McCain and Obama. It is more fun to watch debates in the presence of other likeminded people. If you are a political junkie like me, the first presidential debate is the highlight of your political year. This year it is hard to imagine a debate where the issues mattered more. There as always was the stoic Jim Lehreh at his desk facing the candidates, two podiums and an audience full of eerily silent people lurking in the dark.

As theater, the debate did not quite meet my expectations. I only grudgingly give it a C. I came prepared for a good verbal swordfight but with a few exceptions, nothing like blood was shed. It soon became clear that Barack Obama was going to be gentlemanly throughout, no matter what mud was slung his way. If you are trying to appear presidential and bipartisan, this is likely a good strategy but makes for ho-hum television. Still there were so many missed opportunities to hit McCain. Obama reiterated the obvious ones, like McCain’s support for the Iraq War and his tendency to vote the party line. I guess it would have looked mean spirited to inflict too many wounds. McCain after all is an ex-POW and was tortured by the North Vietnamese. Perhaps Obama figured he should not suffer too much.

Frankly, I had far more fun watching and listening to Senator McCain than Senator Obama. The frequent split screen shots were quite revealing. I figure McCain must have cracked a molar from pressing his jaws so tight. While obviously trying to hide his true feelings, McCain’s face was actually a window into his soul. Basically, he was seriously pissed. For the most part, he could not actually come out and act pissed so instead we got many half smiles that looked totally fake while inside you could see that major earthquakes were going on. There were times when I felt certain that McCain was fantasizing about walking across the stage and giving Obama a shiner. It was perhaps borne out by his inability to look at Obama during the debate, and his halfhearted handshake before and after the debate itself.

Not that I was planning to vote for McCain anyhow but his body language and screwed up face just confirmed for me that I want neither he nor his vice presidential pick to have their hands anywhere near our nuclear launch codes. When he did criticize Obama, it was in a mean and condescending way: poor little Barack, he is so dangerously naïve and inexperienced.

Obama was, in a word, unflappable. For McCain, debating Obama turned out to be like being at a carnival game booth where you keep trying to hit the moving ducks and you find out that you never came close. Obama was consistently measured, respectful and when he criticized McCain, it was always based on the facts.

It was also hard not to contrast their styles. Obama has a broad and natural grin that just radiates sincerity. McCain looked like he had an inflamed hemorrhoid. You could see that at times not all his neurons were firing in the proper order. His sentences often rambled and his thoughts were not always coherent. He frequently repeated himself. He went on and on about earmarks, as if cutting them would seriously address federal spending. Puh-lease. If you really want to cut federal spending you have to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, and neither of them are suicidal. Obama slipped up a few times too. He called McCain “Jim” at one point but quickly corrected himself. As a master speaker, McCain was wholly outclassed.

The pundits are suggesting that neither McCain nor Obama won the debate, but of those who had an opinion, Obama generally got higher marks. Who won really matters little. What matters is: did the debate change the dynamics of the race? Various focus groups of independent voters watching the debate showed that overall Obama did a better job of wooing independents than McCain. I doubt the polls will change much as a result of the debate but if they move at all, they will move toward Obama.

Overall, McCain performed better than I expected. While rambling and incoherent at times, I heard less of it than I anticipated. Moreover, there were times when he looked genuinely sincere and thoughtful. Those times though were few and fleeting. Behind in the polls, he felt the need to sling as much mud as he could at Obama to see if any of it stuck. In my opinion, none of it landed. In this jousting match, neither rider was thrown off their horse. Obama had McCain reeling a few times but McCain managed to stay on. McCain hit Obama’s armor a few times but neither he nor his horse had to check their stride.

Most of us were hoping that both candidates could be pinned down on the current economic crisis. Neither McCain nor Obama rose to Jim Lehreh’s bait, and gave circumspect replies that basically did not tell us how they felt about the package beyond some principles they wanted to see in the final legislation. Both seemed anxious to weasel around the question. That was disappointing but perhaps not wholly unexpected given that the issue is in such flux now. What legislation that finally emerges at this point is anyone’s guess.

The vice presidential debate next Thursday is likely to be far more entertaining.

September 27th, 2008 at 07:05pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

The ownership society has arrived!

On February 21, 2003, President Bush gave a speech in Kennesaw, Georgia. There he first talked about America becoming an “ownership society”. In those heady days of neo-conservatism, an ownership society meant power was going to trickle down to the masses. We would be in charge (own) our health care and drive down medical costs through the magic elixir of medical savings accounts. We would have more ownership over our children’s education by using government furnished vouchers to send them to the local charter or private schools, rather than the nearby public school. Moreover, we would “fix” the social security problem by empowering each citizen to own his or her retirement. We would do this by allowing them to invest at least a portion of their social security withholdings into the stock market. Over forty or so years in the workplace, the value of those assets would compound and compound. Thanks to the magic of our free market we would all retire, if not exactly millionaires, then comfortably indeed. You can easily see how much better life would be if we could just become owners of these things instead of, well, renters!

Good news Americans! We have indeed become the ownership society! Today, more and more of us cannot afford health insurance, so we now get to pay for all of our medical expenses out of pocket! This gives us a feeling of ownership over our health care we never had before in those horrid insured days. Now we have plenty of incentive to shop around although, admittedly it may be hard to drive a bargain with an emergency room physician at 2 AM, particularly when you are profusely bleeding or are unconscious. Many of us are choosing to own the problem of our health care by not seeking medical help at all. We hope that we can find relief in over the counter medicines or $4 generic prescriptions at Wal-Mart. For those of us who used to have health insurance, how can we claim that we are not owners? In the past, you were at the whim of your health insurance companies, who stipulated what they would cover in their expensive, take it or leave it contracts. Now you are unencumbered, free of the HMO and PPO bureaucracy to make your own informed health care choices and to shop around. Perhaps my family doctor will reduce my rate if I threaten to buy an over the counter medication instead.

Those school vouchers sound pretty good too. They do have a few minor drawbacks. First, your voucher probably will not be made up with additional revenue to finance our local public schools, but that’s their tough luck. That’s what they get for providing mediocre education. Second, it is likely that whatever voucher you receive will not cover the full cost of your children’s tuition. Maybe some cheap local charter school will not ask you for additional tuition yet will magically provide high academic standards. Anyhow, it looks like vouchers may involve significant extra out of pocket tuition expenses. When you write those tuition checks instead of putting the money away for junior’s college education, you should feel a sense of ownership. Perhaps you can get stock in the local charter school, and use your shares to vote for principals that you like.

And as for financing our retirements with gains from the stock market, good news there too! You may be asking, “Mark, haven’t you read the papers? The stock market is in the toilet because of the sub-prime housing mess! How could there possibly be any good news?” Well, you see it is good news because, citizens, now we are all going to be owners, whether we like it or not! As usual, our fine financial leadership leapt into action. After finally determining that our financial system had a severe case of constipation (due to consuming too much sub-prime mortgage backed securities of uncertain worth), the Secretary of the Treasury, working with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, decided that a pricey dose of Ex-Lax was in order for Wall Street. Apparently, the U.S. Treasury underwriting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was not enough. The government, already the insurer of last resort for floods, will now own eighty percent of the mega-insurance underwriting company AIG in exchange for providing it with a huge line of credit in order to ensure it stays solvent. In addition, our administration is readying to ask Congress to spend up to seven hundred billion dollars to buy these sub-prime and other securities that Wall Street cannot unload. We are told that this will solve Wall Street’s constipation problem for good since those Fannie and Freddie bail out suppositories did not do the trick. The good news, citizen, is that the federal government will now own all these properties, which means you are entitled to your share! No wonder the stock market finally roared back at the end of the week. Those traders were positively euphoric. You would be too if you went to Las Vegas and lost everything you own in the casinos, including your house and cars, only to find that your older brother, in his largess, was going to cover your reckless losses. In fact, you would probably head right back into the casinos to see if you could work some more of this magic.

So we the taxpayers are the winners here, see? Wall Street gets to go back to its business and we the taxpayers get to own all these properties, many of which are spanking new! I know I want my property. I know that soon the government will own all sorts of properties across the country. I want my sub-prime house! I was thinking about requesting my free house in Flagstaff, Arizona as a possible retirement house. That way I could sell my current house and keep the proceeds. Sweet!

There is the little problem that the government is not planning to raise my taxes to purchase all these sub-prime mortgage backed securities. Raising taxes of course is evil, even when completely necessary, which means that we will petition our creditors, most of who are foreign, to lend us seven hundred billion dollars so we can in turn buy these mortgage backed securities whose value no one can actually assess. I suspect our creditors will be accommodating because they have no idea what their investments in these sub-prime securities are actually worth either. Yet, they have an idea that the U.S. Treasury will still be in business in ten or fifty years when their U.S. Treasury bonds come due, with interest, of course.

So maybe I will not get my free house as I hoped. Maybe instead it will be our foreign creditors since technically it appears that they own the country, not me. My job as taxpayer is apparently mainly to cough up the interest on our federal debt.

Hmm. So perhaps I was premature to suggest that the Bush Administration succeeded in making us all homeowners, even those of us who rent. On the surface though it looks like, sure enough, neo-conservative principles have worked! We now have that ownership society they promised us! Who says we have a miserable failure as a president? He delivered on his ownership society in just five years!

And yet, this new ownership society just doesn’t quite look and behave the way we expected. It is like buying a Rolex watch only to find out it is a cheap rip off.

Well I am sure that by doing more of the same and electing John McCain and Sarah “I can dress a moose” Palin as our next president and vice president, during the next four years we can become even more of an ownership society. It’s funny though. This ownership society sure looks like an ower-ship society to me. From the greatly deflated value of my stock portfolio, it looks like I am already paying the price for other’s incompetence and malfeasance.

September 20th, 2008 at 09:28pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | one comment

Unsolicited advice for Senator Obama

I have to hand it with Republicans. When it comes to a campaign playbook, they stick with what works. An election won is an election won, whether won fairly or through foul tactics. The last leg of the 2008 presidential campaign is shaping up to look a lot like the 2004 campaign, which is heavy on the negative advertising (generally because it works). This time the McCain campaign is running ads that are outright lies. They do not just stretch the truth; they actually lie. Perhaps the most egregious ad was this one where they claim Obama was in favor of sex education for kindergarteners, a lie debunked by many reporters and documented on FactCheck.org.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have proven that scruples only matter to losers. McCain has this one last chance to be president. With Bush and Cheney blazing the way, he can feel comfortable tossing his alleged principles aside and just do what it takes to win. All is fair in love, war and politics, apparently, including lying these days.

Fortunately, the Obama campaign is doing better than the Kerry campaign did and generally is swift in responding to attack ads. The problem is that the Obama campaign is responding. It is reacting. This is a poor way to win a campaign because the campaign is always on the defensive, which makes it hard to get its message out. The School of Karl Rove has validated some crucial lessons: elections are often won by whichever side stays on the offense. Rarely is a football game won through an interception.

The McCain campaign is playing the campaign game like a dirty game of rugby where you repeatedly kick the legs out from under your opponent. It is hard to grab the ball when your opponent keeps making you land on your ass.

Unlike the pathetically desperate McCain campaign, the Obama campaign does not need to resort to lies to go on the offensive. Joe Biden understands what to do, as did Harry S Truman. Tell the voters the truth and the opposition will think it’s hell. It becomes a matter of knowing which truth-telling shells to lob, when to lob them and where to lob them. It is time to lob some artillery shells and fortunately I know when and where to lob them, and which ones to lob.

For the moment, Sarah Palin is the wind in the Republicans’ sail. McCain’s pick has been surprisingly effective in picking off more disgruntled Hillary Clinton voters than expected. It is likely that these voters have a good gut feeling about Sarah Palin, but do not know some unseemly facts about her limited record. If many voters like her because they have a good feeling about her, those feelings need to be replaced by reasonable doubts.

These swing voters need to know that she has a history of vindictiveness. Voters need to be educated about her repeated efforts to use her influence as governor to twist the arms of the Alaskan State Police to fire her former brother in law. They need to know of her repeated attempts while she was mayor to fire the Wasilla town librarian for stocking books she did not like, as well as to ban books from their library. They also need to know that while mayor the town had a policy of charging rape victims the cost of rape kits used after they were sexual assaulted, as she did nothing to change the policy. The campaign should create ads like this and play them repeatedly in swing states where Hillary voters predominate, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri.

After a week or so, they should air ads demonstrating not only that she has a cruel and vindictive side, but also promotes policies anathema to many Clinton supporters. She is obviously no supporter of abortion rights, not even in the case of rape or incest. She does not support national health insurance, a cause dear to many Clinton supporters. She does not believe global warming is real. These ads should enforce a meme that she is inconsistent and her positions are outside the mainstream. Talking Points Memo, for example, put together this video that clearly shows that Palin repeatedly supported the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska before being against it. There is no arguing with video.

Palin is hardly someone who opposed to taking federal money. In fact, she proved especially competent acquiring it. She gave money to DC lobbyists to make sure that Wasilla got far more than their share of the federal dole. As it is, Alaskans already receive more federal dollars per capita than any other state. While mayor of Wasilla, she pulled in more federal dollars per capita than any other town or city in the state. The ads should end with her image positioned next to President Bush’s. “Stubborn. Says one thing but does another. If Sarah Palin becomes president, will she too just be more of the same?”

Doubtless, there is much more in Palin’s record that could be brought out, but a couple weeks of clever and focused advertising using my strategy would remove any luster she currently enjoys.

The Obama campaign should then run videos that emphasize his correct judgment vs. McCain’s incorrect judgment. Show him courageously speaking out against the Iraq War when it was considered anti-American to do so. Relentlessly hammer in the point that McCain voted with President Bush 90% of the time. Show that Obama’s tax plan would reduce taxes for 95% of Americans while making the rich pay more. Hammer in that McCain’s plan would actually give more tax relief to the richest 1% than they currently enjoy. There should be two major closing themes. The first: voting for McCain and Palin is like giving George W. Bush a third term. The second: judgment matters and Obama has demonstrated the wiser judgment needed to be president.

Yo! Obama campaign! Anyone there listening?

September 12th, 2008 at 07:54pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

My fantasy run for president

It will not surprise you to learn that I am not running for president this year. There are many reasons for this.

• I am a virtual nobody, just some guy who runs a blog
• My closest brush with political office was being vice president of the condominium association, hardly the sort of qualifications most voters are looking for
• As you will find out, my positions would make me unelectable
• I tend toward introversion. Shaking hands, kissing babies and making speeches are all things that I do not enjoy.
• I hate telephone soliciting. Yet if you are serious about running for any office, unless you are independently wealthy your first act is to call everyone you know and schmooze them for dollars. Where’s the fun in that?
• I am a federal employee. There is this inconvenient law called The Hatch Act, which means if I wan to run for any political office, I must first quit my job. I am quite attached to my pension and do not want to diminish it.

Still, if dumpy middle-aged guys can give tens of thousands of dollars to attend fantasy sports camps, I can run a fantasy presidential campaign. I thought that since this is a fantasy I would give you my positions on the issues so you can cast your fantasy vote for or against me. You will quickly see that I am unelectable. In my defense, I will say that if my positions could be enacted into law, the world would be a much better place. Unfortunately, my positions while they probably would be effective would also be politically unacceptable.

While my run for the presidency is fantasy, I am quite serious that these are my real positions on what should be done on some of the important issues of the day.

Civil Rights. I believe that not only are we all created equal but also we all must be treated equally by the law. I would require that all trial attorneys spend a court specified percentage of their time to ensure that the poor and indigent get the same quality of legal representation as the rest of us. All lawyers would be reimbursed for their services, but all at the same rate based on the local cost of living. Citizen review committees would assess the quality of a lawyer’s legal representation for those who cannot afford a lawyer. If a trial lawyer failed to provide roughly equal representation for his poor clients compared with his paid clients, he would be disbarred.

Defense. I think our defense budget is vastly bloated with much of it going toward weapons systems that attempt to solve military problems with 20th century solutions. I would work to chop it by at least a third and invest some small amount of the savings into greatly expanding the State Department and our foreign aid. Let’s turn at least some swords into plowshares! The Peace Corps would be dramatically expanded. We would typically operate as part of multinational forces based on broad international consensus. Our defense budget would go principally toward dealing with 21st century threats, including deterring nuclear proliferation, securing existing nuclear sites, securing our borders and expanded intelligence gathering operations.

Economy. Future growth must be environmentally sustainable. The key to smart growth is not just to invest in clean technologies, but for the government to get its fiscal house in order too. This means a government that is on a financially sound footing, which does not spend beyond its means and is not afraid to raise taxes to avoid deficit financing.

Education. We need to pay teachers commensurate with the future value we expect from their pupils, which means a pay increase of roughly twice what they currently get. This would make teaching much more competitive resulting in better teachers. Yet, we cannot raise test scores in a vacuum. We must also address the socioeconomic problems that result in so many students doing poorly academically. If a parent cannot provide the nurturing and stable environment needed for a child to succeed in school, courts should have the power to remove children from these homes and place them into social environments that will nurture them personally and academically.

Energy and the Environment. We all have to learn pollute less and consume less energy. We should embrace Al Gore’s challenge to have all our electricity come from non-carbon producing sources by 2020. We should not allow another tract of undeveloped land to be developed until all existing tracts of land that are no longer used are developed first. I would massively increase our public transportation and fund initiatives to build bike trails in our communities.

Ethics. Politicians should adhere to the same ethics laws as federal employees. This would effectively mean public financing of campaigns, because no outside source is allowed to give this civil servant anything worth more than $25 in value.

Faith. Your faith or lack thereof is your own business and not the government’s business, but your faith must be practiced openly and must not harm children. Faiths that raise their children in isolated compounds and make them marry older men while they are not of legal age would not be a protected religion. Public money should never be given, directly or indirectly, to religions or faith based groups.

Family. We must work toward a stable population in this country or future generations will not be able to live in a sustainable world. To achieve this as benignly as possible, we should allow tax exemptions for the first two children in each family only, unless the children are adopted. We should encourage single-family households by doubling tax exemptions for these families. We should end all discrimination against gay and lesbian couples as parents. Parents should be required to take parenting classes before the birth or adoption of their child. Parents should get tax credits for taking continuing parental education courses.

Fiscal. The government should live within its means and only deficit finance for true national emergencies such as unprovoked wars or national catastrophes.

Foreign Policy. The United States needs to stop being an arrogant nation and to project a humble foreign policy instead. We should work quietly with other nations working for the greater world good, not just our own parochial interests. We should become much more invested in and supportive of multinational organizations, and work to reinvigorate the United Nations. I would decrease aid to Israel by ten percent each year until a comprehensive peace has been negotiated with its neighbors.

Healthcare. We need universal health insurance now. There are plenty of successful examples out there among developed countries. Let’s pick one example that looks like it would work best in our culture and implement it, adjusting based on lessons learned as we go.

Iraq. Our troops would be out by the end of 2010 except for military personnel needed to train Iraqi troops and secure our embassy.

Poverty. It is time to narrow rather than widen the gap between the have and have-nots. This means the rich need to pay much more in the way of taxes. In the long term, poverty is addressed by investing in our children’s education and addressing the socioeconomic conditions that cause poverty.

Signing statements. Signing statements would not be allowed. Attempts by the president to execute the law other than faithfully would be impeachable offenses.

Social Security. Mend it, don’t break it. Make it fiscally sound even if it means higher payroll taxes or waiting longer for retirement.

So, it’s clear: don’t vote for me!

July 26th, 2008 at 05:28pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

Some candidates are more equal than others

It’s great to be a millionaire! You get to have all that money, live a lavish lifestyle and have your capital gains taxed at rates that are maybe one third to one half the rate of any income you happen to earn. Chalk up a new privilege for having deep pockets, thanks to a June 26th Supreme Court ruling. If you want to run for office, and so many millionaires do, you are also guaranteed to have an advantage over any less moneyed opponent.

The court has long held the dubious opinion that money is equal to freedom of speech. The obvious inference is that those with lots of money have a whole lot more freedom of speech than the rest of us. If I want to have the freedom of speech that millionaires have, say to put a full page advertisement in most of the nation’s major metropolitan newspapers, I might need to raise a couple million dollars. A millionaire though just writes a check. Done. I guess you have to wonder what is the point of having money, it being a completely fungible commodity, if you cannot spend it like you want. Some millionaires use their money to buy condominiums in Trump Tower while others use it to run for office. (Some do both.) No wonder that politicians like John McCain and John Kerry marry rich. Unless you have a certain personal magnetism like Barack Obama or have extremely good party connections, most politicians of modest means have to grub for campaign money the old fashioned way.

The so-called “Millionaire’s Amendment”, an attempt at campaign finance reform sponsored by Senators McCain and Feingold, was an attempt to even out the playing field for the less moneyed candidates. It was based on the assumption that all candidates should have as equal a playing field as possible so their message can be as equally heard as possible. This would allow voters to make a more informed choice and would promote a more effective government. The court had already invalidated limits on how much a millionaire can spend on their own campaign with their own money. The Millionaire’s Amendment simply stated that when a candidate spends more than $350,000 of his own money to run for office, his opponents’ contributors can spend up to three times as much as the normal $2,300 personal campaign limit otherwise imposed by law.

In this ruling, the Supreme Court once again proved that it is far more concerned about the free speech rights of millionaires than people like you and me. On the same day it overturned 200 years of precedent by saying that citizens have an absolute right to own a gun it also came out with this squirrelly opinion right out of Animal Farm.

Surely, you have read the George Orwell classic, right? In case you missed it, the book is a parable that tells the story of animals on a farm revolting against their oppressive owners and taking collective ownership of the farm. Only, as was true of the communism that it satired, the animals discovered that while all animals were in theory equal, some, specifically the pigs, were “more equal” than others.

Citizens, your Supreme Court agrees. The Declaration of Independence solemnly proclaims that all American citizens are created equal, but since those exact words are not in the constitution, the Supreme Court instead decided to parse the freedom of speech clause. Freedom to speak is apparently equivalent to the freedom to spend your own money anyway you want, which I mistook for the concept of liberty. If you are rich and running for office, your money gives you a disproportionate advantage to get out your message. It is like you having a sound truck going up and down the block while your opponent is reduced to speaking at a street corner. Guess whose point of view you are likely to hear? Guess who has a disproportionate influence?

The Millionaire’s Amendment was simply an attempt to even out the playing field a bit. There were no constraints on how much a millionaire could spend on his campaign, but it did allow his opponents to be heard a little louder. At least that was true until this ruling invalidated it. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the slim 5-4 majority, said that it “imposes a penalty on any candidate who robustly exercises that First Amendment right” to “engage in unfettered political speech.”

You would think that a millionaire’s opponent would have that same unfettered right, but apparently only to the extent of their own less sizeable assets. In short, the Supreme Court has very explicitly stated that some people’s rights to finance their campaign are more important than yours, and you can measure the size of that right by the money in their pockets. Any attempts to rectify the situation through law, even when it does not restrain the millionaire’s right to spend his money as he pleases, are likely to be ruled unconstitutional by this court.

Clearly some animals are more equal than others and it appears the Supreme Court is going to make sure it stays that way.

July 7th, 2008 at 07:09pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

The audacity of stupidity

I have been trying to understand the rage of Hillary Clinton supporters now that she is out of the Democratic presidential race. Naturally, none of their rage seems to be directed against her personally for failing to win the nomination. Unsurprisingly, much of it is instead directed at Barack Obama who had the audacity to run a better campaign, present a better pitch to voters and, yes, sorry to dash your illusions Hillary fans, but also win the Democratic popular vote.

There are also many passionate Obama supporters out there. Had he lost and Clinton won, which I argued was what should have happened, I suspect many Obama supporters would be upset too. Perhaps they too would threaten to do what a quarter of Clinton supporters tell pollsters they will do: either sit out this election or vote for John McCain. The fact that some of Clinton’s supporters would actually vote for John McCain tells me how strongly they were vested in Clinton’s campaign. That they would actually vote for a candidate who is against almost all the interests that Clinton stood for strikes me as exercising the Audacity of Stupidity. Dogbert would have a field day with this line of reasoning.

As readers know, I support Barack Obama for president. However, I never was one of those Obama fanatics. I liked all the candidates and could have happily voted for any of them. I only narrowly chose Obama over Clinton. I could have happily voted for Clinton in the general election, despite her statements during the Pennsylvania and West Virginia primaries that sure sounded racist to me. I could vote for her because she is smart, personable, has values that are similar to mine, has a fair amount of political experience and also because I would have liked to see a woman in the Oval Office. Those obliquely racist comments about being best able to represent the values of the downsized, lower income white middle class were, I realized, mostly a desperate attempt to change the dynamics. (Moreover, it was probably untrue, given that Obama grew up living on food stamps, and she grew up in a comfortable Republican household.) This was clear to many others and me that by the end of March she just wasn’t going to be the nominee. Obama speaks of the Audacity of Hope. Hope though is predicated on at least something tangible. By the end of March, Clinton’s best hope was that some racist nut would assassinate her opponent. You do not plan a win based on such a strategy.

History will be the ultimate judge of why Obama won the nomination and Clinton lost. A few things are already clear. Obama ran a much better campaign. It is not that Obama’s advisors were all that cleverer, but that Clinton’s advisers were running her husband’s campaign. They never spent much time looking past Super Tuesday, which they assumed would set dynamics in play to seal the nomination. They raised money the old-fashioned way, on the rubber chicken dinner circuit and by networking their well moneyed friends, instead of the tapping the power of the Netroots and the Internet. Bill Clinton certainly did not help her. His own vaguely racist comments solidified the African American vote for Obama, which polls suggest she actually led at the end of 2007.

Mostly Clinton lost because when Democrats pondered it long enough she was not quite the candidate the majority of Democrats were looking for. As much as many of us wanted a woman president, she came with known baggage. Her negatives were well known and overall she was as unpopular a political figure as a popular one. Obama understood that this would be a change election. Clinton did not represent a clean break with the past and a fresh face. Given this dynamic, it is remarkable that she did as well as she did. It is doubtless cold comfort, but she came very close and split the last two primaries with Obama. She was not trounced. She set an excellent example of how to a woman should run for president. I am sure she inspired the woman who will someday hold the job.

Her claim to be the more experienced candidate struck me as rather strange. Like with her dubious claim of having won the popular vote, one can also play the numbers with experience claim. If one counts only time in elective office, sorry, Obama wins. Obama spent eight years in the Illinois senate and is closing in on his fourth year as a U.S. senator. Let us call his political experience a dozen years. By the same yardstick, Clinton’s political experience is eight years, all of it as a U.S. senator. Clinton of course wishes to discount Obama’s time in the Illinois state senate, but it was certainly a political office. She also wants to count her time as First Lady. The position is of course an honorary one and not a political one, although she did manage (and ultimately bungled) an attempt at national health insurance. Yes, she worked on other political campaigns, but Obama also spent many years as a community organizer making $12,000 a year. Personally, I think it is a wash. I do not think either candidate could credibly claim more experience. Clinton could legitimately claim the experience of being in the White House and understanding its unique political culture. There is a big difference though between observing it as First Lady and actually having the responsibility that her husband assumed.

So what drives the animus against Obama by a sizable number of her supporters? I have been reading blogs, news stories and asking Clinton supporters personally trying to find out. Clinton supporters cannot credibly claim that Obama is a misogynist. Quite the contrary, he arguably has as good if not a better record on women’s issues than Clinton. Throughout the campaign, he has been uniformly polite and deferential with Clinton. I will grant you that many commentators showed their misogyny, as this will attest. Mostly they represented forces that already disliked her, and were principally on the right. Remarks about her cleavage, for example, irritated me as much as it did millions of women.

Obviously, given their passion Clinton partisans saw more in her than I saw. Even so, I was overall impressed with her as a politician and as a candidate. While not the perfect woman to run for this office, she was at least eighty percent there. I actually did shake Hillary’s hand once when her husband was running for president. This was in Atlanta in 1992. The brief time I spent in her presence convinced me that she was a woman of substance.

Clearly, I am not a woman. However, I think I can put myself briefly into the minds of her supporters. I think women who supported her felt at last here was a woman who could truly be elected president. She had the right set of political and personal skills to pull it off. Many women also feel victimized by life. This is likely because most of them have been repeatedly victimized. (Men get victimized too, but that’s for another blog post.) They get crass come-ons from horny coworkers, bosses and construction workers. They earn on average 70% of what men earn. They are stuck with the majority of the childrearing business. They have people anxious to tell them what they can do with their own bodies. They were denied the vote until the 1920s. It is our time, it is our turn, I suspect is what they were thinking. Then out of nowhere comes this mixed race African American, another damn man, and snatches away her victory in an incredibly close contest with what looks like unearned charisma and smoke and mirrors. If this is how Clinton women feel, I can understand their anger and exasperation.

I am sorry that this election will mean that we will have another damn man in the Oval Office. I am sorry that no male president can think like a woman because he has a sex organ hanging between his legs. Nonetheless, it would be a profoundly stupid thing for any Clinton devotee to sit this election out or vote for John McCain. It is counterproductive to the values Clinton supporters claim to stand for. A vote for John McCain is a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. It is that simple. I hope their anger can be redirected before November where it belongs: on McCain and Republicans in general.

No, we will not have a woman president this go around. But it looks likely that we will have a distinguished and energetic man of mixed color who has fought for women’s issues all of his adult life and whose wife is a die hard feminist. It may be half a loaf, but it is at least half a loaf. Sit tight, American women. I think you will find America will have a woman president much sooner than you think.

June 12th, 2008 at 09:05pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

The change we need

There have been many deserved jeers over the new U.S. House Republicans’ slogan, “The Change You Deserve”, which they unveiled yesterday. They desperately need to convince the American public to keep pulling the levers for congressional Republicans this November. Somehow, they think this lame and wholly inappropriate slogan is going to make us overlook the last eight dreadful years. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. This slogan sure is desperate, and lame.

The slogan has been viciously lampooned. Ironically, it apparently was first used in advertising for the antidepressant Effexor. The metaphor though is an interesting frame, though not for Republicans. Americans do deserve a dramatic change. Unfortunately for Congressional Republicans, since the Democrats took Congress in 2006, Republicans have been the anti-change party. Understandably, the political opposition prefers to jam sticks between the bicycle spokes of the opposing party rather than show them succeeding. They have been very effective, ensuring that little meaningful change occurred during the last two years. No matter what the House passed, it was killed in the Senate. Republicans may be in the minority there too, but they have the power of the filibuster, and they have been using it at rates unseen in any previous congress. Change has been stopped. There has been no change in deficit spending. There has been no change in the Iraq War. There has been no change on the environment. There has been no change in holding the Administration accountable for its crimes. Between Bush’s obsessive obstinacy and congressional Republicans effectiveness at gumming up the gears of government, it is no wonder that 81% of Americans disapprove of Congress.

Yet somehow, Americans are being asked to reelect these bozos in order to get “The Change You Deserve”. Most Americans feel like they have gotten plenty of change in the last eight years. Between stagnant wages, downsizing, two wars, half a trillion dollars squandered, millions more uninsured and no action on global warming, the nation feels like it has been gang raped. Now these people of all people want us to believe they can give us the change we deserve.

Maybe they are sobering up at last. House Republicans have been feeling very spooked lately, having lost three special congressional elections in a row. The latest happened Tuesday in a northern Mississippi district that is so red that President Bush carried it by more than twenty points in 2004. It suggests there are no safe seats for Republicans come November 4th.

Election Day promises to be the perfect storm that capsizes the Republican brand for a generation or more. I am one of these Democrats not afraid to dream large. I do not think a filibuster proof 60-vote Democratic majority in the Senate is out of reach. When over eighty percent of Americans say we are on the wrong course, this means this election will be a torrential storm that will shake the rafters and blow out the windows. It means a fundamental political realignment is likely.

I think there is a 50-50 chance that Democrats will achieve a filibuster proof majority in the U.S. Senate. House Republicans are worried about losing as many as 23 more House seats to the Democrats, having lost 31 seats in 2006. In truth, in 2006, voters were just miffed. Now they are royally pissed. Republicans will be lucky if they only lose another 31 seats. I would not be surprised if Democrats picked up another 45-50 seats.

In the presidential contest, it is clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. It is also unfortunately clear that racism still exists in this country. I suspect the race factor could add as much as 5% to McCain’s vote total nationwide. Nonetheless, in the end it will not matter. The chronic need for change will overwhelm the race issue.

It is going to be a very blue election. I expect 58-62 Democrats in the Senate when the dust clears on November 5th. I expect 35-50 new Democratic house seats, making the House at least 60% Democratic. I will be surprised if John McCain exceeds 200 electoral votes. In any event, I cannot see him winning with these election dynamics.

So where is the downside for us Democrats? The downside will be that Democrats will be expected to govern competently. There is a reason Republicans rose to power in the first place. It had nothing to do with Democrats being “too liberal” or “too high taxes”. It had to do with complacent and corrupt Democrats feeling secure in their majority and forgetting those they served. It remains to be seen whether we have learned our lesson. If history is any guide, Republicans have some cause for hope. Change may be necessary, but it is damnably hard. Complacency may be more of a Democratic problem than a Republican problem. Republicans have proven reasonably effective at implementing their agenda. Unfortunately, their agenda and America’s needs rarely intersect. I am hopeful that with the influx of new Democrats and a Netroots base committed to real change that this predisposition can be overcome.

While Republicans promise small government and lower taxes, what they deliver instead is larger government, modest tax cuts and obscene amounts of long-term debt. Democrats are comfortable with larger government, are not terribly comfortable with deficit financing but are also leery of increasing taxes too much. The problem for Democrats will come when they try to align their promises with available revenues. Die hard Republicans still believe that all fiscal problems are solved by cutting taxes. Democrats cannot spend money on vital activities like addressing global warming and insuring all Americans’ health by putting it on the credit card as Republicans did. Taxes will have to go up. Of course, the most convenient target will be the wealthy. However, like a new oil well, it cannot be tapped indefinitely. Eventually more of the tax burden will have to go down the income chain.

Democrats must sell value. National health insurance, for example, is going to cost tens to hundreds of billions of dollars a year for starters. No one likes to add to his or her tax burden. However, tax increases can be sold by selling the value of the new services for their cost. For my family of three, our health insurance costs average about $12,000 a year. If I were to pay this in additional taxes, my tax burden would double. Presumably I would not have to pay this much. Nevertheless, even if I did I would hopefully have the certainty of not having to pay any additional costs to ensure my family. I do not have that certainty right now. The hard part of course is implementing a national health insurance plan that provides this value and does not squander the money. That takes competent government. Using such strategies, I think Democrats can sell the obvious tax increases that are needed to address these sorts of problems.

What we really do not need is more pandering. House Republicans want to pander to us by selling us the change we deserve. Heck, don’t we all deserve a pony? What we require is a president and Congress that will sell us the changes we need. If Barack Obama is to draw on the power of hope, then he needs to find the eloquence to sell to ordinary Americans on the ultimate value of these painful and taxing changes. Moreover, I hope we Americans can find the patience to give our bluer government a chance and to make the long-term changes that our country requires.

May 15th, 2008 at 08:19pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

The scourge of faux patriotism

Apparently, the latest thing in political correctness, at least among politicians on Capitol Hill, is to wear an American flag pin attached to the left lapel of your suit.

Yep, it seems like all you have to do is pierce that flag pin through your lapel and your patriotism will never be questioned. Go ahead. Spend your weekends funneling money to terrorist organizations or building explosive suicide belts in your basement. It doesn’t matter you see because by wearing the pin that proves you are a true patriot. It’s Washington’s version of a “Get out of Jail Free” card. It’s like having Uncle Sam behind you with a hand on your left shoulder and Betsy Ross with a hand on your right shoulder. Don’t you dare question my patriotism, boy! Can’t you see I’m wearing an American flag pin?

Most of us with brain matter realize flag pins say zero about your patriotism. Astoundingly, a sizeable number of people, particularly on Capitol Hill and in the right wing media actually think that the absence of a flag suggests that you are unpatriotic. Sadly, this says volumes about the state of patriotism in our country. Many can no longer detect the real thing when they see it. Really, it’s time to give these people some emergency oxygen because they are starting to hallucinate. I always thought that saying you are patriotic and actually being patriotic were two different things. But I guess I must have been raised by godless, left wing commies.

Really, I could care less whether a politician wears a flag pin since it means nothing, nothing! However, I am interested in knowing what actions during the course of a politician’s life they can point to that demonstrates their patriotism.

To me the most patriotic thing anyone can do is fight for our country. John McCain fought for our country as part of what turned out to be a wholly misguided war in Vietnam. He was held as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese, who abused and tortured him over many years. While I did not agree with the war, I honor and respect John McCain’s patriotism. Unquestionably, John McCain is a patriot. The same is true with John Kerry. Granted not all soldiers put their lives in danger but those that do unequivocally demonstrate their patriotism, even if sometimes they no not feel particularly patriotic for having done so. Anyone who would criticize John McCain or John Kerry’s patriotism because they do not wear an American flag lapel pin is a damned fool.

Clearly, there are ways to demonstrate patriotism other than becoming a soldier. Our government’s efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina may have been half-hearted, but ordinary citizens by the thousands showed their patriotism. They spent time, effort and money going to the Gulf Coast to help in its rebuilding, a process that is still underway nearly three years later. I gave money for rebuilding, which did not feel particularly patriotic but was expeditious. My friend Renee’s son spent a year working for Americorps including some months in and around New Orleans rebuilding housing. He invested a year of his life helping his fellow citizens. He is a patriot.

In the recent ABC News debate, Barack Obama pointed to his work in the Senate on legislation for veterans as one way that he demonstrated patriotism. No, Obama never served in the armed forces. However, after graduating from law school he did make the choice to foreswear a more lucrative and moneyed life in favor of community organizing. He certainly had the talent to be a six-figure lawyer. Instead, he chose civic engagement, initially through community organizing and later by spending eight years in the Illinois Senate and subsequently the U.S. Senate. He and his wife carried the burden of their student loans into their forties. He might still be paying off his student loans had he not written a few best selling and not so best selling books.

To me Obama’s patriotism is beyond dispute. So why are some, including many in the press, obsessed that he only sporadically wears an American flag lapel pin? It beats the hell out of me. Frankly, it says much more about their character than it does about Obama’s. It’s like, “What was all that other stuff he was doing since he graduated if not an expression of patriotism?” Community organizing to better the lives of the working poor is no more patriotic than shuffling papers for well moneyed clients at expensive Manhattan law firms?

As I once noted, beliefs are irrelevant. I could believe I am a patriot, but if I do not demonstrate my beliefs in time, effort and money then patriotism simply amount to beliefs. Actions however matter very much because through action we change the course of events. How you choose to spend your time provides all the insight you need into someone’s character.

It appears to some that unless your actions conform to some strange right-winger’s idea of patriotism then you are not really a patriot. It is curious that many of those criticizing Senator Obama and others for not wearing an American flag lapel pin have done little to nothing to demonstrate their patriotism other than wave the flag. Few of the people who led us into an unnecessary war with Iraq served in our armed forces. President Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard but it was widely understood that he did so in order to avoid being drafted. He ended up in the Texas Air National Guard only because of his father’s influence. Vice President Cheney had “other priorities” during the Vietnam War. He successfully dodged five draft attempts using educational deferments. Condoleeza Rice never came close to serving in the military. Richard Perle, who served on the Defense Advisory Board, which advocated the war, never served in the military. Nor did his special assistant Douglas Feith, who ran the Defense Department’s controversial Office of Special Plans, which advocated for the war. Most of those who shrilly promoted the war for the media did not serve either. Rush Limbaugh managed to attain 4-F draft status based on a football knee injury. Many of those who had, such John Kerry and Colin Powell, were at least grounded in the magnitude of these actions, and worked to prevent them.

While I find much to admire about the United States, I also find much about it that appalls and disgusts me. These include our bloated defense budget and our tendency to use guns instead of diplomacy to solve our international problems. I certainly feel like a stakeholder of my country, as I was born here and will probably die here. While I have and will keep working to make this country a better place, I am also concerned about the world as a whole. I see little value in xenophobic patriotism.

Nonetheless, I do occasionally feel patriotic. I do not wear an American flag lapel pin, but I feel fine putting our flag out on major national holidays. I can get misty when I hear the nation anthem played even though, frankly, it is poor choice for a national anthem. (Why not “America the Beautiful”?) I do take pride in our military, which is the best trained and equipped in the world. I am grateful for competence and professionalism of our military and deeply respect those who serve for our country. I am not naïve. I realize that it is due to our military that our homeland has remained at peace since the Civil War. I am not naïve enough to think we do not need a military. I certainly do not ascribe to the slogan, “My country, right or wrong”. My patriotism informs me that when my country is wrong, I have the duty to make it right.

Which brings up something else that annoys me about these lapel pins. The real statement is that unless patriotism is reflexive, it is not real. It you are not a mouth organ for the state, particularly at a time of national crisis, you are not patriotic. Capitol Hill was awash with faux patriots in the days after 9/11. Politicians overwhelmingly marched in goosestep with the President when he said we had to invade Iraq. I did not. I worked like hell to prevent this war.

A few politicians at the time bravely said no, this is a war we should not start. He was just a state senator at the time, but Barack Obama stood and spoke at a public antiwar rally and spoke out against this war. In doing so, he demonstrated that he is a true patriot.

April 21st, 2008 at 08:04pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | one comment