Occam’s Razor

Stupid is as stupid does

Apparently, I missed this law enacted in 2005 before Republicans were routed out of control of Congress. The bill was labeled the “Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users” otherwise known by that ever popular acronym SAFETEA-LU. What? You never heard of it either? Well, these things happen. I had not until I read this story in today’s Washington Post. Only a very stupid Congress could pass such an asinine law. It had to be one vested in obsessive and anal adherence to its bizarre political ideology at the expense of all common sense. Doubtless it was a congress full of bizarre ideologues like this one. In other words, it comes courtesy of our late and unlamented Republican congress. Moreover, only a very stupid president could have signed it into law, and we sure have one of those now.

It would be much more appropriate to have called it the STUPID: The Scatterbrained Transportation Umbrella Program from Insipid Dunderheads. The provision of note is the one that cuts federal funding for regional transportation systems that provide charter buses for special events. Apparently, by doing so private charter bus services might be undermined. The effect of this law locally is to make it difficult or impossible for Metrobus to provide buses for special events that it is uniquely qualified to handle safely, efficiently and conveniently.

For example, not everyone drives to FedEx Field in Lanham, Maryland to see the Washington Redskins play. Some want to take the Metro. Unfortunately, Metrorail does not have a station at FedEx field, so Metro has been conveniently providing shuttle bus service pre and post games for fans. According to Metro, 1300 buses last year alone were chartered to get people to and from Fedex Field. Patrons get off at Metro’s Landover Metrorail Station and give the bus driver a five-dollar bill. In return, they are quickly driven to the stadium in time for their game and get a convenient ride back to the Metro station after the game.

Thanks to SAFETEA-LU, this is ending. Metro would first have to check with dozens of charter bus companies in the region to see if they are interested in providing the service. The law discourages metropolitan transit systems from competing with the private sector for these events even though they already have the infrastructure in place to provide the service, and all parties are comfortable with the service provided.

It is not as if Metro is making any profit from the service. Part of its “problem” is that it is a non-profit agency. Maybe that was the real issue that chafed at Congressional Republicans. According to Metro’s press release in 2007, it provided 2,500-chartered buses and earned $1.6 million dollars for these services. It made no profit off these deals. Turn the job over to the private sector, assuming it could provide the number of buses needed for the event, and the price is likely to rise substantially.

Is Metro particularly concerned about this loss of business? Not really, since they never earned more than pocket change off the service. They are concerned about chartered bus services delivering customers to Metro stations where they are currently not allowed. The drivers who operate these charter buses are not familiar with Metro’s rules. Likely some of these buses are too long or too high to even get into the Metro stations. As for passengers, primarily they want to get to and from the game. Yet because of SAFETEA-LU they are likely to have to pay more for the privilege. Ah, the joys of free enterprise!

In short, the law creates a new large and unnecessary inconvenience for riders and Metro. Moreover, not only Redskins fans will be inconvenienced. Also affected are patrons who want to take Metrorail to Wolf Trap Farm Park in Vienna, Virginia. The Filene Center there holds myriad concerts during the summer. In 2009, patrons will not be able to step onto a Metrobus at the West Falls Church Metro Station to get to Wolf Trap. For 2008, Metro has received a waiver to continue the service, perhaps because shows start this weekend and it is impossible to find a chartered bus service in time. The waiver might also have something to do with Wolf Trap Farm Park patrons tending to be pretty well moneyed. It may not be a good thing to tick these people off.

In satisfying the holy grail of competition, our unlamented late Republican congress once again conveniently bypassed the sanity test. This portion of the law at least is shortsighted and dumb. It is also bothersome and likely more expensive to riders. It adds to Metro’s hassles, since they have to deal with the logistics of training charter bus companies to adhere to its rules and regulations. It is also likely wasteful, because Metrobus has the buses and the drivers readily at hand who can provide the service.

“Stupid is as stupid does,” Forrest Gump informed us back in the 1994 movie. I guess compared to squandering trillions on an unnecessary war in Iraq, this is a venial sin. Nonetheless, we will be dealing with the legacy of stupid laws like this one for some time to come. I hope in the wash of pressing business for our new Democratic president and our expanded Democratic congressional majority next year, rescinding these silly provisions of this law will not be overlooked.

May 23rd, 2008 at 07:53pm 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

McCain’s health care non-solution

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain is in the news today. He unveiled his comprehensive health care proposal: a $2500 tax credit for individuals and a $5000 tax credit for families to allow them to buy the health insurance plan of their choice. He believes that with such an approach that competition and the free market will make health care affordable so we can all be insured.

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, Republicans like McCain must be from Pluto. It is amazing that reporters do not laugh him off the podium. McCain is not the first Republican to advance such a free market non-solution to our health care crisis. His proposal though is truly worthy of derision.

First, his plan is hazy on what to do with people with pre-existing conditions. He wants states to form insurance pools for these people, but his plan does not require any insurance company to be non-discriminatory. He also allows people to continue with their employer-based health insurance if they want. However, his plan would give employers incentive to ditch their health insurance plans altogether. Why should they pay for health care costs when the government will instead?

So assuming you do not have health insurance and an insurer will agree to sell you a health care plan then after your tax credit you will have to pay all the excess premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Naturally, your premiums will tend to be higher if you are older, have unhealthy habits or have a history of chronic health problems. I did price individual health plans on this web site. I checked plans in my zip code for a hypothetical couple age 40. The only plan I could find without any deductible was a plan with the HMO Kaiser Permanente. It costs $542 a month, limits you to their physicians and comes with a $20 co-pay any time you want to see a doctor. Generic drugs come with a $10 co-pay. Brand name drugs come with a $30 co-pay. So assuming you never see a doctor or take any medicines then after your tax credit you and your spouse will still have to pay $1504 a year. You can expect that as you age your premiums will go up. How much? If the same couple were 50 years old, they would have to cough up $872 a month, or $5464 after their tax credit.

Most likely, you have other bills to pay. You would want to reduce premiums and pay a yearly deductible instead. What is out there? Blue Cross/Blue Shield would be preferred. A 40-year-old couple would pay $259 a month for a plan with a $1000 a year deductible with an Anthem BC/BS plan. Unless you see the same doctor more than three times, co-pays are $30 a visit. If you see someone out of the network, the insurance company will pay 70% of what it considers a reasonable and customary fee. If your out of network doctor charges you $125, you file for reimbursement and your insurer considers $75 reasonable and customary, your costs come to $22.50 plus the amount over $75, or $72.50 a visit. This is of course after you have satisfied your annual deductible. If you see one of their preferred doctors then you just pay the co-pay. However, you may find, as I have, that a family member needs faster or better care than what you can get through a preferred provider. This plan costs $3108 a year if you never get sick or never need a prescription drug. In theory, you and your wife could pocket close to $2000 a year. If you are like most of us and get more than the sniffles once a year, you can probably add on that $1000 deductible, plus other co-pays for prescriptions. It’s hard to imagine that a tax credit will cover your health costs. If you and your spouse are age 50, the price rises to $333 a month.

Who is not paying? If you take the tax credit, your employer is not paying anything. Perhaps the money they might have spent to subsidize your health insurance will go to giving you a higher salary, but I would not hold your breath. Anyhow, I suspect the optimal cases I outlined are not close to your situation and you will need more health care. If I had to guess, I would guess that a typical family would be out $5000 to $10,000 a year on health care costs after their tax credit. I bet this is where most of us are at right now. In short, it will not necessarily improve your bottom line at all. Nor does it do anything to address the problem of rising health insurance. All this free market ideology sounds great but if it is so great why has it not worked so far? The same health insurance companies we have today are going to be offering roughly the same insurance they do now under McCain’s plan. By that time, of course it will be pricier.

Moreover, the older you get the more expensive insurance will become. You can try buying a less expensive health care plan, if you can find one, but health insurance is like sitting on a beanbag chair. If you pay a smaller premium, you get astronomical deductibles or unacceptable conditions and exclusions instead. It could mean, for example, that you cannot get the kind of health care you need when you need it, such as an organ transplant.

McCain’s health care plan also begs the question of how the tax credit will be paid for. He has already ruled out raising any new taxes. In fact, he wants to keep the tax cuts for the wealthy that he once denounced. It would probably help if we got out of Iraq but he has been quoted as saying he would be fine if we stayed there a hundred years. Even if we did get out of Iraq, the government would still be spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year more than it receives in revenues. Consequently, the cost of this health care tax credit would likely come from borrowed money. In some of my earlier blog posts, I pointed out that when the government borrows money from foreigners the effect is inflationary. It explains part of the high cost of commodities like gasoline. McCain talks about finding savings by cutting the size of government. However, every president these days says he will do it and none of them has yet succeeded. In any event, the real cost of government is not in running agencies like HHS or even the Pentagon. That’s pocket change. It is in programs considered largely untouchable, like Medicare, Medicaid and agricultural subsidies. The closest modern president to constrain the size of government was a Democrat: William Jefferson Clinton.

Clearly, this proposal is just more smoke and mirrors, providing the illusion that health care can be made affordable with doing nothing to address the underlying problems causing costs to spiral.

What will work? Many first world countries have nationalized health insurance. They offer universal quality health insurance and are doing it for a fraction of what we pay. If you have the time, you should watch Frontline’s Sick Around the World. You can watch the entire show on your computer. Washington Post Reporter T.R. Reid goes for Frontline to the United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Taiwan to see how these countries provide universal health insurance. The mechanics of course vary by country, but it is clear that not all solutions require turning all health care professionals into civil servants or under-compensating physicians and health care professionals. I found Japan’s approach the most interesting. We could pick any of these models, have high quality and universal health insurance and pay considerably less per capita than we are currently paying, all without ever worrying about whether we could afford it.

Or we could put yet another Band-Aid on the problem, keep letting costs spiral out of control and believe that we can really cover everyone with tax credits, which is John McCain’s “solution” to our health care problem.

April 29th, 2008 at 07:36pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

The price of incompetence

(This post is sort of a continuation of this one, which if you have not read it, you should.)

I was wondering if this year I could report that my wife and I were millionaires. It looks like we may have to wait a few years. In fact, given the fallen dollar, deflated house prices, deflated stock prices, rising unemployment and what looks like the return of stagflation, maybe we need to wait a couple of decades to celebrate our seven figure net worth.

Thanks to inflation, being a millionaire these days is no longer that a big deal. However, if we get there we cannot, like Jed Clampett, go buy a mansion in Beverly Hills with a “cement pond”. In the intervening forty years, one million dollars today is worth $164,000 in 1968 dollars, which was when The Beverly Hillbillies was at the top of the Nielsen’s. To reach Jed Clampett’s lofty income we would need about $6.3 million in today’s dollars, a total we are unlikely to achieve.

In fact, our portfolio is down rather sharply. I am trying to keep this unwelcome news in perspective. The reason our net worth was approaching a million dollars was because much of our portfolio was overvalued. Even so, at the end of 2007, Quicken calculated my net worth at $910,000. Today, just ten weeks later, it said our net worth is $860,000. What happened? Who took away $50,000?

Well, there was a drop in the assessed value of my home that I received recently. When the country assessed it last year, it was worth $511,000. This year, even though I put in new energy efficient windows, it is worth $479,000. In 2006, though it was worth $552,000. In two years, the value of my house has dropped 14%.

At the end of 2007, which had already seen the beginnings of a bear market, our investments were worth $479,000. Today they are worth $455,000, which amounts to a drop of five percent in a little over two months. What happened? The subprime mortgage mess kept happening and its effect is rippling across stocks and mutual funds worldwide. Between the losses in my mutual funds and the lower value of my house, since the start of the year, I have lost $54,000. Fortunately, I reduced debt and added income and that cut my total loss to about $50,000.

I am very mindful that we are some of the fortunate financially. Our house cost us $191,000 when we bought it in 1993, so even at $479,000, it has been a good investment, returning on average about $19,000 a year, if you do not factor in the costs of mortgage interest, taxes and upkeep. If we had been a first time homebuyer in 2006 when housing prices reached their peak, we might well be embroiled in the mortgage meltdown now. Most likely the net worth on our house would be negative. We would resent paying against a mortgage for our house when the loan value exceeded its value. We would be hoping we could keep up on my mortgage payments in our uncertain economy. Of course if we had been one of those reckless buyers who purchased a home with no money down and a variable mortgage interest, we would be likely be screwed. I doubt we could pay the higher interest rates and with our house’s value decreasing. We would be inclined to walk away from the whole mess.

There’s the rub of course. It did not have to be this way. There could have been regulations in place that ensured that only people who were reasonably solvent could buy houses. That has not been the governing philosophy of these last eight years. To quote the fictional Gordon Gekko from the 1987 movie Wall Street (and by implication the late Ronald Reagan), “Greed is good”. If you can earn a fast buck, it does not really matter so much how you earned it as long as you made the quick profit. This is the downside of laissez-faire capitalism. It is a primary reason why Republican ideology just does not agree with me. None of the current economic mess had to happen. Instead, we let it happen. We did not so much turn a blind eye to it as we opened the doors and let the bull into the china shop. As crazy as this sounds, we let the bull in because we thought it was good to have a bull in the china shop.

If Democrats had been in charge these last eight years it is likely much of this mess would have been prevented. Had Al Gore been president, his administration would have had an eye on the subprime mortgage problem and likely, it would have been nipped in the bud. Congress, being in Democratic hands, would likely have had oversight hearings, resulting in prudent regulations on the housing and financial industry to preclude these sorts of problems. Unquestionably, we would not now be embroiled in a winless war in Iraq, draining the economy of three billion dollars a week in direct costs and pushing the down the value of the dollar.

Instead, we have a Republican president and a largely Republican rubber stamp Congress. Whatever the President wanted the Congress went along with it. Congressional oversight became a joke. We had a government of, by and for the corporation and very rich people. Not surprisingly, it reflected the values of corporations and very rich people who, unsurprisingly, want themselves to get a lot richer and the expense of someone else. Tax cuts went disproportionately to the richest people. When wealth trickled down at all, it trickled down to shareholders, not to the laborers who sustained the economy. Moreover, all this additional wealth did little to improve the commonweal. Our infrastructure deteriorated. The resulting detritus is easy enough to see around you: homes foreclosed, gas prices going through the roof, a crumbling infrastructure, the recession that we know is upon us, and the return of stagflation.

My real financial concern is more personal. With the failure of the Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns, the question is really, “Who is next?” Our portfolio is reasonably diversified, but we have over $150,000 in various Vanguard funds in a retirement portfolio. If Vanguard goes the way of Bear Stearns, will our portfolio be safe? In other words, just how safe is our financial system right now?

Doubtless, I am not the only investor deeply troubled by these events and wondering if there is a severe recession or even a depression around the corner. It is evidenced by $111 a barrel oil and gold priced at over $1000 an ounce. It is clear that savvy investors are lining up by the exit doors. It will take just one little jolt to have them bolt out of the room. The Federal Reserve is trying to preclude this possibility. That is why is took the nearly unprecedented step of offering Bear Stearns a line of credit of $200 billion.

I am irked because this financial crisis was completely avoidable. I am outraged though because I am paying the price for government incompetence. I can see it in my net worth, where $50,000 has disappeared from my portfolio since the start of the year. Multiply my small misfortune across the United States and we have a huge financial meltdown that could be catastrophic.

This is not business as usual, unless you expect incompetence. This is government abdicating its job. This is the White House and Congress largely asleep at the switch, reacting to events instead of preventing them. In case it is not clear to you, we have governments to protect the interest of its citizens.

Who will win the White House race in 2008? Who will win the Congress? There is no doubt in my mind. Democrats will win. You can see it in poll numbers, where self-described Democrats outrank self-described Republicans by more than ten points. You can see it in the primaries and caucuses where Democrats are participating at rates unseen in a generation. You can get a preview of the election by looking at the results of a special election held last week in Illinois to fill former House speaker Dennis Hastert’s vacated seat. A Democrat won it.

For eight years, we have seen what happens when Republicans order the government and the economy the way their principles dictate. What we have is a financial mess not seen since the Great Depression. That event was another completely preventable economic event that was brought to us by Republicans. Will we ever learn? Will Republicans ever understand that their economic principles are not just fundamentally bankrupt, but fundamentally wrong? I doubt it. They are clueless folk. They are looking at the mirage of Reagan’s shining city on the hill, while ignoring that America is falling apart around them.

At least the American public is now fully, painfully and nervously awake. I can only hope that we can get the government we need before our current economic danger devolves into an economic catastrophe.

March 16th, 2008 at 11:12am Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

Bye Bye, Modern Conservatism

The big lesson of The Cold War was that communism was unworkable. It was not that, like a shining city on the hill, it did not have some merits in the abstract. In a way, it was Christianity as Jesus had envisioned it without the Christ. In reality, communism killed millions, most of them fellow communists, in an attempt to prove that its model of governance would actually work inside our culture. It quickly devolved into a dictatorial socialism. Communism still has some adherents, but they are rare. You have to go to places like Nepal and Cuba to find communists these days.

In 2008, we should have learned another lesson: modern conservatism does not work either. The only ones who have not gotten the messages seem to be modern conservatives themselves. No matter how stupid and wrong-headed modern conservatism has proven to be in action they can neither see nor face it.

For six years the conservatives have had carte blanc. You had a conservative president with a rubber stamp conservative Congress. Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that by putting their version of conservatism into practice, they ended up at odds with their own principles.

Conservatives are supposed to believe in limited government. When has the most growth in the federal government occurred lately? During two of our most conservative presidents: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Conservatives believe in giving more power to the states and less to the federal government. Yet Conservatives have been busy doing just the opposite. From intervening in the sad Terri Schiavo matter, to trampling on California’s desire to regulate automobile emissions, to overturning Oregon’s assisted suicide laws, rather than returning power to the people and the states, conservatives have proven they want to increase federal power. They cannot even be conservative about our food and are gleefully approving irradiated meats and encouraging us to consume cloned animals.

Conservatives supposedly believe in freedom from government intrusion into our personal affairs. Yet they have no qualms about allowing the NSA to listen in on our telephone calls without a warrant or to sniff our emails. Conservatives are supposed to believe in human rights, yet it was conservatives who took away some of our fundamental rights. They gave power to the president to lock up anyone he wants to as enemy combatants, including American citizens in the United States, and keep them away from the courts indefinitely.

It is all a ruse. What conservatives really want, and which is true of most politicians, is simply power. They have gone to extraordinary and likely unconstitutional lengths to acquire it and to hold on to it. Conservatism should be about relinquishing the power of the state. It is supposed to be a philosophy that gives you more personal freedom, not less. Before Bush came to power, I had the right of Habeas Corpus. Now in certain cases, I do not even have this right, a right that can be traced back to the Magna Carta.

Prior to our current president, I thought we had three branches of government. I assumed that if conservatives ran the government they would diligently respect the separation of powers. Now I find out that there is a fourth branch: Dick Cheney and that is why he cannot release any records under the Freedom of Information Act. Prior to this administration, I assumed that if a bill became law the President was constitutionally required to execute it faithfully. Now I learn that even though a president signs a bill, he can unilaterally assert the right to ignore parts of it or take actions that are the exact opposite of the intent of Congress. All he has to do is attach a signing statement. Conservatives, please show me what part of our constitution that gives the president this power.

In short, there is nothing the least bit conservative about modern conservatism. Indeed, conservatism as it is practiced today has nothing in common with conservatism at all. When someone comes along, like Ron Paul who actually parrots true conservative principles, modern conservatives snicker. A real conservative would never have gone into Iraq in the first place because real conservatives do not rush into anything. Changes, if they must occur, are done thoughtfully and only after great consideration, and typically with reluctance.

Conservatism does not really exist in this country. Instead, it has been co-opted by the ranks of people who are hotheads, obnoxiously stubborn and who cannot even be bothered to pay attention to the laws of cause and effect. Despite the last eight years, they still believe that by cutting taxes the government will balance its budget. It did not work for Ronald Reagan, and it did not work for George W. Bush either but hey, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make any sense, what matters is sticking to principle! Cutting taxes is so important that they will even borrow money today and make their children pay for it tomorrow so they can enjoy lower taxes now. In essence, modern conservatism is simply rampant selfishness for the moneyed crowd gone amok. No accumulation of disagreeable facts and outcomes can suggest to this crowd that even one of their policies was ever in error. Instead, they anticipate tomorrow, or next week, they will be proven right.

This is why they are foaming at the mouth because it looks like John McCain will win the Republican nomination. Conservatives like Ann Coulter are so upset they want to raise money for their nemesis Hillary Clinton. The reason they loathe John McCain so much is that McCain realizes to get things done you sometimes have to cross the aisle. He has demonstrated an unforgivable pragmatic streak. A true conservative never compromises principle for the sake of political expediency. (I might add, many liberal Democrats suffer from the same delusion. I saw this in the fascination for many with the candidacy of John Edwards.)

Conservatism, at least its most modern and perturbed manifestation, is in its death throes. That is why President Bush’s approval ratings are at 30% and Congress’ are even lower. That is why Democratic caucuses in overwhelmingly red states like Kansas have people waiting for hours in the freezing cold to participate. People across the country are in great pain, and it is a direct result of having conservatives in charge. They are not easily roused out of their political stupor, where they prefer to remain. However, they are roused in this election. For eight years, government has been run for the exclusive benefit of the elite. It was done this way openly and shamelessly. Middle and lower class America has paid the price in lost jobs, stagnant wages, dirtier air and a collapsing health care system. It will take another generation before they will have a chance at power again. First, they need voters who can forget their trail of carnage, and the only hope of doing that is to have no memory of it.

I hope that future generations will read take the time to read their history books. Modern conservatism like communism has proven unworkable. It should now be relegated to the dustbin of expensive lessons learned.

February 9th, 2008 at 03:40pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008 | no comments

Presidential candidate marriages under the microscope

I know it should not bother me but it does. Fred Thompson is running for president. Fred is 65. His wife, the former Jeri Kehn is 41. Fred, at age 65 is looking, well, old, as in grandfatherly. Jeri looks like a fashion model. Perhaps when you are 24 years younger than your husband is this is to be expected. There is no question though. Jeri is a babe. Fred knows how to pick the lookers.

When it comes to May-December marriages, Fred is not the leader of presidential candidate pack. Think about one presidential candidate, Republican or Democratic, who you think is least likely not only to be married (secretly you think he is gay) but even if he were married, would have a much younger spouse? Raise your hand if Dennis Kucinich comes to mind. You are, by the way, spectacularly wrong. Dennis is on his third marriage. Dennis may be 61, but his far left leaning vegetarian lifestyle bought him quite a filly. She would be Elizabeth Jane Harper, born in 1977, whose resume includes working in Mother Teresa’s orphanages as well as the British House of Lords. She just turned 30.

I started this blog post thinking that if Republicans are the party of family values then their presidential candidates should not have as many divorces under their belt as the Democratic candidates. Conversely, Democrats, because they are left leaning liberals should have candidates rife with multiple divorces. Yet surveying the seven current Republican and seven current Democratic candidates, the presidential candidates for both parties are equally as likely to have been divorced. In this sense, both parties are fielding candidates who well represent the public on marriage, where approximately half of our marriages end up in divorce.

If you are interested, my statistics are summarized in a table in the extended entry. My survey should be taken with a grain of salt, since it involved about an hour of web surfing, much of it on Wikipedia whose veracity sometimes can be questioned. (If you find errors, please send them to me so I can correct them. Please note that Joe Biden’s first wife died in an automobile accident, so he has never been divorced even though he is on his second wife.) Many of the candidate’s spouses are good at hiding their ages from prying Internet eyes.

Rudy Giuliani and Dennis Kucinich might not appear to have much in common, but they top their party’s candidate lists in the number of divorces: two each. Which party prefers younger spouses? At least with the current crop of candidates, Republicans seem to like their wives younger. I was unable to find information on the ages of the wives of Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo, but it appears their wives are close to their own ages. On the Democratic side, Joe Biden, Mike Gravel, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson seem to have wives not anxious to reveal their ages. Based on the incomplete information I do have, Republican wives tend to be 11 years younger than their spouses are. On the Democratic side, the difference in ages between candidates and their spouses is 7.75 years. Among Republicans, John McCain is 18 years older than his spouse Cindy is, and Rudy Giuliani is 11 years older than his third wife Judi is.

Dennis Kucinich skews the statistics on the Democratic side. If I could ignore his candidacy (and most of us do), the Democratic candidates would show no average difference in ages at all with their wives. John Edwards’s wife Elizabeth is actually four years older than he is. Barack Obama’s wife Michelle is three years younger.

Most of us assume that John McCain is the oldest of all the candidates running. In fact, he is the third oldest. Mike Gravel is the oldest at 77. (He is also, I was surprised to learn, a fellow Unitarian Universalist. No wonder he has no chance of winning.) The favorite candidate of the Libertarians, Ron Paul, running as a Republican, comes in second at 72. John McCain is 71. Barack Obama is the youngest candidate at 46. The average age of Republican candidates is 63. The average age for Democratic candidates is 60.

Given the small sample set, there is not too much I can say with authority about presidential candidates. The evidence does suggest that Republicans running for president prefer much younger spouses and Democrats prefer spouses around their own age. So perhaps the Democrats can accurately state that their candidates are more representative of traditional family values. Who’d have thunk?

November 19th, 2007 at 10:22pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2007 | 2 comments

Desperately seeking Reagan

Wanted: Republican presidential candidate. Must be tall and have gravitas in his voice. Must convince Americans that it is Morning in America again. Dyed, slicked back hair optional but highly preferred. Former actors and governors preferred. Must be a rich white Republican male. Apply at Republican National Committee.

Good news for disgruntled Republicans: Former senator and Law & Order actor Fred Thompson has decided it is not too late to run for President. Fred belatedly but officially kicked off his campaign last week, spurning a debate with fellow candidates in New Hampshire for a folksy chat with Jay Leno instead. Fred is now hitting the Iowa and New Hampshire campaign trails hard. Desperate Republicans are rushing to check Fred out. They are all wondering the same thing: is Fred our next Ronald Reagan?

Sadly for Republicans, it appears not. To this Democrat, listening and watching Fred last week revealed that he sounds and behaves a lot more like George W. Bush than Ronald Reagan. It is not that Fred does not know how to act. He proved that on Law & Order. What he is missing is the ability to articulate. When handed a script and coached by competent directors, Fred made a convincing district attorney. However, on the stump he comes across as bumbling. He struggles to articulate a coherent message and often reverts to platitudes. His grasp of the facts often is appalling. If he is to be the next Reagan, Republicans will be forced to project a lot more into him than is actually there. His Southern accent and rambling style also reminds me of George W. Bush. After eight years of Bush, I doubt most Republican want to replace Bush with someone who looks and acts a lot like him.

Better to go for someone without the muddled southern drawl, someone more handsome and with better hair. In other words, maybe it is time for Republicans to hold their nose and vote for someone from the liberal northeast, i.e. Mitt Romney. In addition to being handsome, he is also tall and articulate. His Mormon faith is still viewed with suspicion by many Republicans, but at least he is a faithful family man. He has also walked away from conservative principles from time to time, but perhaps these instances can be forgiven. After all, he had to work with a Democratic legislature. Mitt has been through Republican hell and back. At least he has been battle tested.

Although blessed with a huge personal fortune, Mitt may be missing a bit in the style department. This may explain why former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani leads among Republicans in nationwide polls. Unfortunately, he is missing the needed Reagan hair. Perhaps he can talk with William Shatner, who can point him to a place that will give him a good price on a toupee. Among all the candidates, Rudy at least sounds the most like Ronald Reagan. He can swagger without it looking insincere. He may lack Reagan’s self-deprecating style, but he sure knows how to sound sure of himself. If only he were, well, better at being faithful. Maybe it does not matter anymore, since the Republican candidates are rife with questionable moral character issues. Unfortunately, in Rudy’s case there are moral red flags everywhere. Stepping around on the missus can perhaps be forgiven provided it is done with some discretion, but when done so flagrantly it is hard to excuse. Giuliani can at least be given credit for having nerve. Stepping around with another woman and inviting the press to witness it all at least showed he had nothing to hide. Moreover, that gay couple he lived with for a while, well, perhaps they were Log Cabin Republicans. Anyhow, the image of Rudy standing by the ruins of the World Trade Center six years ago with a bullhorn in hand is indelible. He sure looked and sounded commanding at the time. If he became president, clearly Giuliani would not be a limp-wristed Jimmy Carter type who might agonize over tough decisions. Above all a Republican president must charge decisively forward. This apparently is what leadership means to Republicans.

Sam Brownback has great hair but suffers from being in the back of the pack with little in the way of accomplishments. John McCain is reliable but too old and has taken too many controversial positions. Campaign finance reform? How the heck are Republicans supposed to win if they cannot have an uneven playing field?

Then there are all these congressmen running. You know the Republican Party is in deep doo doo if three of their candidates are congressmen. These include Duncan Hunter, Tam Tancredo and Ron Paul. Ron Paul at least is enough of a gadfly to liven up their otherwise dreary presidential debates.

This leaves only Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. Here is a word of advice for Republicans: if you want a chance of actually winning the presidential contest next year, nominate Huckabee. You can also have a good time with it because he will probably run against Hillary Clinton, and you loath both Bill and Hillary anyhow. It would be karmic justice to nominate him. He followed Bill Clinton as governor of Arkansas and like him was born in Hope, Arkansas. Huckabee also has the advantage (how to put this nicely) of being the only Republican candidate who comes across as mainstream rather than extreme.

Sadly, although he has nice hair he neither looks nor sounds much like Reagan. So Republicans need to give the Reagan thing a rest. Perhaps by applying enough voltage to Reagan’s grave he will emerge in a zombified state to lead the free world again. Perhaps he could even run for president again. I am sure our newly conservative Supreme Court that they could issue an appropriate ruling.

Jesus came back from the dead but Ronald Reagan does not appear to have his powers. Therefore, Republicans will just need to accept the sad fact that there is no new Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings out there. Even if there were, America is not the same country it was in 1980. Cherish his memory. Overlook his mistakes. Perhaps you can carve his image on Mount Rushmore. Reagan can perhaps be impersonated, but he cannot be equaled. It is time to give up the foolish Reagan fantasies and to make your best pitch from the candidates you have.

September 11th, 2007 at 02:21pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2007 | one comment

My Widened Stance

It is not often that I am bothered by the downfall of a Republican politician. Yet I am troubled by the on again, off again (currently on again) resignation of Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho. Craig pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge that occurred in a men’s room at the Minneapolis airport on June 11th. Allegedly, he was making signals to an occupant of an adjacent stall that he was interested in engaging in homosexual conduct. For tapping his feet, moving his feet partly into an adjacent stall (the “widened stance”) and allegedly peaking into a neighboring stall, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor. (Craig is now trying to retract his plea.) For this minor transgression, he was arm-twisted by his fellow Republicans and asked to resign from the Senate.

If Craig is a closeted homosexual, of course he is also a hypocrite. He has plenty of company on Capitol Hill. It is virtually impossible not to be a hypocrite and be a politician. Even the most ideological Republican though is not stupid. They know murkiness exists in all human beings. The hastiness by which the Senate Republican leadership are hustling Craig out of the Senate is far more unseemly than any alleged conduct that Craig may have conducted in Minneapolis. Fairness dictates waiting for an impartial review of the facts at a Senate ethics committee hearing. Yet the Senate Republican leadership could not wait. The Republican brand may be a fading brand, but it is a brand nonetheless. Homophobia remains one of its key values, subsumed under their alleged commitment to “family values”. Such a hasty action merely reinforces the opinion of most Americans that Republicans have no sense of fair play.

I do know one thing from fifty years of living. Humans are complex and multifaceted creatures on all levels, including sexually. Kinsey documented half a century ago that virtually none of us are exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. We may have strong preferences in either direction. Many of us may choose not to act on these pulls but that does not mean they are wholly absent. Yet sexual preference is just one tiny aspect of our sexuality. Some of us have strong sex drives. Others have non-existent sex drives. Some of us are not attracted to any gender; we are effectively asexual. Some of us are dominant, others are submissive, and many of us like to switch roles. Some prefer anal sex and others do not. Some take erotic pleasure wearing diapers or dressing as the opposite sex. Some older men prefer younger women. Some older women prefer younger men. Some of us will probably always be attracted to illegal expressions of sexuality like pedophilia.

We are all sexually multihued. If our sexuality were a painting, most of us would have strange patterns consisting of many overlapping and mixed colors. Larry Craig’s failing was apparently for being exposed for not having a black and white canvas. If his alleged behavior actually describes his own sexual preferences, he likely finds some attraction to his own gender. On the Kinsey scale, he is utterly ordinary.

You would be very unusual if you never had even one incident where you did not find someone of your gender attractive. I know I have. Having an occasional tug does not mean I feel compelled to act on it. When it happens I acknowledge it and go on with life. Larry Craig may be wholly accurate when he says that he is not a gay. Like most of us, he is probably bisexual. We are all sexually expressive creatures. Most of us are content to dine at our favorite restaurants. Eating at a different restaurant on occasion does not necessarily make us food deviants. Neither does an occasional incident where we partner with someone of our non-preferred gender. Given the prevalence of infidelity in American, occasionally mating with someone other than our own spouse is more normal than not too. The issue is not the inclination, which is wholly natural, but dealing with the angst, guilt and dysfunction that results when our natural impulses move us in one direction but society requires us to choose a different direction.

So Larry Craig is probably just another multifaceted sexually complicated person. In other words, he is a lot like you and I. Please raise your hand if you have been completely faithful to your spouse, never even had a stray fantasy about another person during your marriage, are completely content with sexual intercourse only in the missionary position and, since marriage at least, have never masturbated. Also raise your hand if you never went beyond chaste kissing during your dating years. I am sure there are some of you out there and that is fine. It is either your preference or supposed societal norms overrode these impulses. However, you represent just a tiny portion of the public. Your values are fine for you but are not in the least bit mainstream. I hate to tell you this but if you are an ordinary human being you are likely a lot more like Larry Craig than not.

It is hard to put myself inside Larry Craig’s brain. However, I am completely certain that wherever it is at, it is consistent with the person he is as he has evolved. Personally, a restroom would be the last place I would go to solicit for sex, but I am not inclined to find someone of my own gender with whom to have sex. If I were a prominent person like Larry Craig and driven by such demons I would look for safer forms of behavior. (I doubt he is the only senator with such inclinations.) Rather than look for it in a Minneapolis men’s room, perhaps I would solicit it on Craigslist. Maybe part of Craig’s sexuality is to be turned on by anonymous sex. If so, he has plenty of company.

I do not want to be solicited for sex by men in men’s rooms or anywhere else. In restrooms, I simply want to do my business and leave. When I am solicited by my own gender, which does not happen very often, I simply say, “No thanks.” It should not be unlawful for one person to tell another person you want to get it on with them. It is certainly impolite in most contexts, but it should not be unlawful. I do care about being mugged or sexually abused in a men’s room. I hope that we prosecute these lawbreakers. I do think there is an expectation of privacy in a men’s room stall but it would astonish me if this were codified into law. If Craig, as alleged, actually was peeking through the cracks of men’s room stalls then he should be held to account. I would note though that two men urinating at adjacent stalls, even if one of the men checks out the other guy’s package, is not a crime. Having to pay a four-figure fine for such an “offense” seems excessive. It should not amount to more than a parking ticket and should never go to court.

The Craig incident simply illustrates to me that many of us cannot yet accept people for being the complex sexual creatures that we all are. Private conduct between two consenting adults is simply none of our business. I wish that Senator Craig had more spine. Bullies usually remain bullies until someone stands up to them. Senator Craig could do people everywhere a favor by standing up for himself. He should draw a clear distinction about official duties vs. private conduct. The voters can throw him out if they find his personal conduct offensive. His fellow senators should not.

Someone needs to tell the people who run our nanny state when they are out of bounds. As a final act of leadership and courage, Senator Craig could forever change the political dynamics. He could do it by boldly asserting his right to be judged solely based on his job as senator. He did not deserve this shabby treatment.

September 7th, 2007 at 11:28am Posted by Mark | Sociology | one comment

The Return of Government of, by and for the People

Today marks the welcome and long delayed return of sane government.

Admittedly, it is just one branch of government that has regained its sanity, but it is a start. For many of us the end of our long, national nightmare did not occur when President Nixon resigned. It happened on November 8th when voters threw the Republicans out of both houses of Congress. Today, as a new Congress was sworn in, government of, by, and for the corporation and special interests came to an abrupt end.

While I felt the political earthquake coming before the election, I was still nervous whether its size would not be enough to dislodge Republicans from both houses of Congress. It was, but just barely. The Senate, where Democrats are in control by a single vote, still does not quite feel like it is in Democratic hands. This is because Democratic Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota remains in the hospital, after brain surgery. While his recovery appears to be proceeding normally, he has a long way to go before he can actively participate in the Senate. If he cannot serve, you can bet that South Dakota’s Republican governor will appoint a Republican to his seat. In this event, the Senate would split 50-50, effectively putting Republicans in charge since Darth Vader, a.k.a. Dick Cheney would become its deciding vote. Due to Senate rules, it takes 60 votes to pass any controversial bill. However, by being in the majority the Democrats will be able control the chamber’s business.

This afternoon found us with a new Speaker of the House who was, for the first time, a woman. Nancy Pelosi is going to surprise many people. Republicans will be the most surprised. They see her as a far left liberal. While that may be true, that does not mean that she will govern as one. She understands that if Democrats want to retain power their impact must be broad and mainstream, rather than serving a narrow constituency of supporters. This is a lesson the Republicans never quite grasped.

It has been a while since government truly worked on behalf of the average Joe. Except for a brief period when Democrats captured control of the Senate, it has been twelve years with a Republicans Congress. Until 2001, we had President Clinton to reign them in. Not that it has been easy. In 1995, Republicans interpreted their majority status as a reason to close the federal government. Over time, their Contract with America became inconvenient to their true mission: maintaining power for themselves and their friends. Term limit promises and rules about not accepting gifts from lobbyists went by the wayside. During this decade all pretenses were dropped. Time after time legislation was passed that gave great benefits to fellow Republicans, and screwed the rest of us.

The Republican Congress and President Bush gave new meaning to the word “chutzpah”. In the House of Representatives, Democrats were effectively locked out of legislative process. All sorts of tactics were used to diminish their power, including enacting rules that excluded them from bill markup sessions. Over in the White House, President Bush signed bills into law with accompanying signing statements. In many cases, these statements explicitly contradicted the purpose of these laws in the first place. He is still at it. On December 20th upon signing the Postal Reform Bill, he said he would interpret the law as giving him the power to open people’s mail without a warrant, even though it gave him no such power. I hope that one of the new Congress’ first acts will be to bring a case to the Supreme Court to test their constitutionality. It is hard to imagine anything more unconstitutional than the president refusing to abide by the law of the land. At least when President Nixon broke the law, he knew he was doing wrong.

What were Americans smoking during the last twelve years? Virtually everything that came through Congress was framed this way: if it was good for Republican interests, let’s do it, and the fiscal consequences did not matter. Consequently, we got obscene tax cuts for the rich and favors for corporations and special interests of all kinds. We got faith-based initiatives on the taxpayer’s dime. We got politicians more concerned about the feelings of fertilized blastocytes than people who lost everything in New Orleans. The most progressive thing Congress did was pass a Medicare prescription drug bill. However, it did not do it until it made it easy for drug manufacturers to keep their profits high. Instead of carbon caps, we had meaningless voluntary quotas on carbon emissions. Throughout these years, while Congress kept increasing its salary it could not find a way to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour. This is a wage so niggardly that you can earn it and be well below the national poverty line. It was selfishness run amok.

Today meant a fundamental change in this sort of wrong and selfish thinking. It may be that after a long spell in power the Democrats may go back to the kind of corruption that deservedly got them thrown out of office in 1994. On the other hand, perhaps Democrats have learned a lesson. A hopeful sign is that the House Democrats, as their first act, will prohibit representatives from accepting gifts from lobbyists.

Granted, after twelve years of Republican rule there is so much fundamentally messed up with the country that all the needed changes cannot occur overnight. The Republican Congress’ contempt for the American people, if it needed any more proof, was evident in their lame duck session. They left town without even bothering to complete passing fiscal year 2007 appropriation bills. However, a new day is dawning in Washington. Congress appears to be ready to be a government of, by, and for the people again. It may be that in 2009, a Democrat will be in the Oval Office too. In that case something quite remarkable will have occurred: two branches of government will have changed hands in just two years. Looking toward the 2008 elections, it is hard to see how President Bush can fail to be a drag on any Republican nominee. In the Senate, the number of Republicans up for reelection is much higher than the number of Democrats, which suggests that Democrats will build on their majority. In the House, it is unlikely that Republicans will be able to chip away at the Democratic majority in only two years. Most likely Democrats will increase their majority.

The fact is that the country is changing right under the Republicans’ noses. Unless Republicans reinvent themselves as a kinder, gentler and more moderate party, they are likely to keep losing seats. The 2006 election proved that the times are a changing. The Midwest is turning blue. Even the Rocky Mountain States are turning a shade of purple. As Generations X and Y age and discover their political power, they are unlikely to model the Republican Party’s values of narrow mindedness, xenophobia and a cultural monotheism. They are growing up in a different America, which is culturally diverse, and where Caucasians will no longer be in the majority.

I believe that history will show that in the first half of this decade that the Republican Party reached its political zenith. Its hold on the majority has always been tenuous because it so steadfastly worked against the people’s interests. Despite Tom Delay’s attempts at gerrymandering, the demographics no longer favor the Republican Party. America’s future is colored blue.

January 4th, 2007 at 07:38pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2007 | no comments

Our Greatest 20th Century Republican President

Sorry, he was not Ronald Reagan. I will give you a hint.

If attitude were more important than actual accomplishments then perhaps Ronald Reagan’s effigy should be chiseled into Mount Rushmore. However, Reagan had many faults. Partisans tend to excuse his gross misjudgments, of which Reagan had plenty. These included:

• The bombing of our Marines barracks in Lebanon and his subsequent decision to cut and run from Lebanon entirely
• Support for terrorists (which we renamed freedom fighters) in places like El Salvador and Nicaragua that killed hundreds of thousands. His obsession led to the Iran Contra scandal, wherein we deliberately broke the law by selling arms to our avowed enemy Iran to fund terrorists in Central America.
• An executive branch lead by so many people with no moral compass that the his administration was arguably the most corrupt presidency in modern history
• A savings and loan fiasco that cost the treasury more than $120 billion
• The largest peacetime deficits in American history

Nor was it the general who won the Second World War our greatest 20th Century Republican President. President Dwight D. Eisenhower also cut and ran, in this case from the Korean War. He “ended” the violence by threatening to use nuclear weapons on North Korea if they did not agree to a truce. If you are wondering why North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-il is so anxious to build a nuclear arsenal and lob missiles at the United States, now you know why. In fact, North and South Korea are still technically a war. Both sides essentially agreed to stop fighting but never agreed to a peace. To this day, fifty years later, we keep tens of thousands of troops in South Korea on a hair trigger alert.

Eisenhower had many noteworthy accomplishments as president. The one I give him the most credit for was the creation of the interstate highway system. In addition, he was very savvy about the consequences of the emerging military industrial complex. On the other hand, during his presidency, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and we did not lift a finger. In 1953, he sent the CIA into Iran to kill its elected prime minister, and then helped put a Shah in his place against the wishes of Iranians. This resentment set up the conditions for the Iranian Hostage Crisis some twenty-five years later. It is one of the main reasons the state of Iran still hates us today. If it is part of an “axis of evil” we were instrumental in its creation. Eisenhower was also the first American president to send our troops into Vietnam. It would take more than fifteen years before we would get them out. Tens of thousands of American soldiers would die in the fiasco along with millions of Vietnamese. Perhaps most shameful of all, while Senator Joseph McCarthy terrorized the nation with anticommunist hysteria, the same general that fought tyranny in Europe turned a blind eye. In addition, he oversaw three recessions while in office.

Most of the other Republican presidents I can dismiss for obvious reasons. William Howard Taft would not be seen as a true Republican today, since he introduced the first federal income tax. However his time in office was both short and undistinguished. Warren Harding’s name is synonymous with the Teapot Dome Scandal, not to mention his moral misgivings. Harding had at least two long-term affairs while in office, including a documented fifteen-year affair with a woman named Carrie Fulton Phillips. Calvin Coolidge was too boring to be noteworthy. Herbert Hoover oversaw the start of the Great Depression. Richard Nixon: nuff said. Gerald Ford: an aberration of a president who was never actually elected, nor was he in office long enough to accomplish much.

Which leaves George H. W. Bush and Teddy Roosevelt.

I was tempted to give the nod to our current president’s father. Granted, of all the Republican presidents in the 20th century, I do not think any of them reached the stature of a man like Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, George H. W. generally did what needed to be done, even though it was not popular. In response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, he showed the sort of leadership and wise judgment at which his son floundered. He organized an international coalition of forces to oust the Iraq army from Kuwait. He did it at minimal cost to the United States taxpayer and without pushing into Iraq itself. He even agreed to a modest tax increase, which was necessary, but which earned him the external scorn of the Republican Party.

However, his four years were not without other major controversies. Like Reagan, he was not amiss to a little gunboat diplomacy. He used our military to illegally invade Panama and put its dictator Manuel Noriega into a Florida prison. While he was instrumental in NAFTA, a treaty that became law under his successor, he failed to staunch a severe recession. Perhaps most troubling is that he left office by granting pardons to many who clearly broke the law, including his Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger along with five others implicated in the Iran Contra scandal.

Consequently, I give the nod to Teddy Roosevelt, who was also the first president of the 20th century. Teddy Roosevelt would be seen today as a Democrat. Indeed, he coined the word “progressive”, which is a label many liberals like me now prefer. He was the original trustbuster. His obsession with reigning in the power of corporate interests and the powerful in general would horrify most Republicans today. He coined the term “square deal” to describe a mutually beneficial relationship between business and labor. He passed the Pure Food and Drug Act along with its companion, the Meat Inspection Act to address problems in our food safety system that today would seem unfathomable. Perhaps most startlingly, he was our nation’s premier conservationist. He set aside more land for national parks than all other presidents before him did. In addition, with much arm-twisting he was able to create the Panama Canal. To do it though he had to break a few eggs. It took some gunboat diplomacy to convince Columbia to allow us to “create” the state of Panama.

He was a man that in retrospect did have some faults. He believed in active United States imperialism. In addition to the “state” of Panama, which was largely our invention, he also invaded the Philippines. His reasoning would seem familiar to our current president. He wanted to “uplift” these poor souls toward “Christianity” and “democracy”. Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam became U.S. protectorates, but it is hardly clear that the natives welcomed our protection. Teddy though was hardly atypical for his time. Manifest Destiny seemed hardwired into our national consciousness in the early 20th century. It would take more than fifty years before we would fully appreciate the downsides of imperialism.

Still, among all our 20th century presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, not Ronald Reagan, stands out as our best Republican president. Perhaps he blazed a trail for his distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was inarguably the best president of the 20th century, yet who has only belatedly gotten the recognition he deserves.

Not coincidentally, Teddy Roosevelt’s graven image is already on Mount Rushmore, as it should be. If anyone deserves to be added to that modern American pantheon though, it should be Teddy’s distant cousin Franklin, not our 40th president.

December 17th, 2006 at 12:09pm Posted by Mark | History | no comments