How much cocaine do you have to be on to go naked hiking for five days on the Appalachian Trail? And how do you do it as governor of a state and manage to dodge your own security, your own staff, the state police, and the press? Sanford's reappearance creates a lot more questions than it resolves.

Ignorance is Piss

The tumult in Iran has lasted late into the night, and yet, here in America, the cable news networks are firmly in fire-and-forget weekend programming mode. Larry King was on during his regularly scheduled slot this evening, MSNBC is running it's standard "documentaries" on prison life, and CSPAN-3 was airing an interview with former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who has been dead for over ten years.

Meanwhile, here's the main page of CNN.com, which might as well be a representative sample of America's perspective on the world:




That's right. A (counter?-)revolution may well be brewing in Iran, and in CNN's best judgment, Americans should be more interested in the bankruptcy of a national chain of amusement parks.

Sometimes I marvel at the extent of our national self-absorption. Is any other country on Earth as staggeringly ignorant and dangerously influential as ours?

I can't find words to express how much I would love to be at a dinner with Charles Krauthammer and Barack Obama.

Civil Obedience

Conservatives suck at protests.

There will be no tea-dumping in the Potomac River -- that's illegal -- but organizers of today's national tea party tax protest found out this morning that so is their plan to dump a million tea bags in Lafayette Square to demonstrate displeasure at government spending and tax policies.

Protesters, using a rented truck to haul the million tea bags, began unloading their cargo at the park this morning but were told by officials that they didn't have proper permits and must move the tea . They complied with the order but are still considering what to do with the load.

As my understanding goes, it doesn't even count as a real protest if no one gets beaten up by a cop.

Tenuous Grasp of Reality

Found here:

"I don't know how to break this to you, but people that go out and murder people don't read The Wall Street Journal."

-- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on whether the bad economy increases gun violence.

I don't even know where to begin pointing out the problems with this statement. Does Bloomberg really think that people need a newspaper to tell them that they're broke, unemployed, desperate and pissed off?

Briefly

Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom.

Discrimination is not defensible under the umbrella of religious freedom, just as the assassination of William McKinley is not defensible under the umbrella of political "speech" or expression.

A jump to the left, but then a step to the right

I find that in recent weeks, I've spent more time looking for hope on the right wing than I have from the left. I am, of course, still a proud liberal, and I still get a tingle from saying "President Obama." But his presidency thus far has been less than perfect, and given that the dire circumstances of the present time leave little room for error, we need to be especially deliberate about thinking critically about all of our leaders and their decisions.

Like the President, I back Keynesian policies in the face of an economic crisis like the one we're in: we spent our way into this mess and now we have to bite the bullet and, very strategically, spend our way back out. "Shovel-ready projects" are a good first step, as well as steps to reinforce the social welfare safety net by extending unemployment benefits. I completely back Obama's holy trinity of energy, health care, and education: I think that the first two can provide a valuable short term economic stimulus and the latter will build a foundation for long term viability.

But as we're all so painfully aware, the biggest federal expenditures right now are going to the financial sector which (not single-handedly, mind you) emptied a clip of hollowpoints into the system that made them rich. We're propping up banks far beyond the basic assurances of the FDIC, often taking control of them, and assuming all of their losses while taking none of the gains. Meanwhile, as Eliot Spitzer has been trying to point out in his Slate articles (which are a must-read), we're also bailing out AIG so that they can make good on their insurance policies by paying huge amounts... to the very banks we already paid off. Meanwhile, all of this is being financed by the Chinese, who not only have a government inhospitable to the capitalist-democratic way of life, but who could stand some capital injections of their own.* All of this debt is increasing rapidly not only in principle, but every additional dollar we spend is accruing interest. Each year in our budgets we keep current on the interest, meanwhile constantly adding to the amount on which we're paying that interest.

Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany won't go on board for the kind of massive government spending that Obama wants from his counterparts throughout the developed world, and very shrewdly: "Over the next decade we will undergo a massive demographic change, and, therefore, borrowing is a greater burden for the future than in a country with a much more continuously growing population." It's a popular trope to say that we're leveraging our current excesses on the earnings of our children. But what should happen if, like Germany, our population levels off or starts declining... or even worse, if we don't turn around the growing class disparity and the vast majority of American children remain in an impoverished underclass with limited earning potential? What happens with that debt then? What happens to our budget projections? It's one thing to plan for what happens if everything turns out as planned, but what about contingencies? Natural disaster? A large-scale terrorist attack? An oil shortage based on our sabre-rattling with both Venezuela and Iran? We have to face the possibility that our economy will likely not be fixed by the end of the year, and even when it is fixed, it will be some time before it's as strong as it needs to be to pay off the obscene amounts of debt we're accruing.

The cartoonists are lampooning Obama daily for his deference to the needs of Wall Street while playing tough with Detroit (which, mind you, would be well served with three long-due bankruptcies and the creation of incentives for foreign automakers to expand into Detroit and employ UAW labor -- support good products and American labor until American companies make a product worth buying). The shouts of populist rage are audible from sea to shining sea, and many of us are hoping in vain for Obama to let the financial industry tank so we can rebuild it in a responsible model. Indeed, it's often hard to tell the left from the right, when the conservatives are accusing the liberals of socialism for wanting to disassemble astronomically reckless banks and restore broad-based financial autonomy and independent ownership so we can engage in true economic competition.

Unfortunately, as we all know, that won't happen. Building an economy where there wasn't one before is challenge enough (see Eastern Europe, 1991), but completely restructuring one of the largest and most convoluted financial systems in history is beyond the range of any President, even Barack Obama. Letting Wall Street and Detroit do a faceplant would wreak more havoc in the short-term than America would stand for, and Washington would be forced by that same populist rage to realign their goals and strategies before they had a chance to do any good with the opportunity they had created. No, for as frustrating as it can be to watch, dismantling the financial institutions we've all come to know and loathe is a project that should be saved for when we have another house to live in after we've burned this one down, not when we have an unemployment rate at 8.5% and rising fast.

With so many problems in having free-for-all battle to determine which gets to screw us the hardest, it seems obvious to me that it's necessary for public officials to remember once again that communication is a two-way street. I'm normally one to defend a certain amount of partisan bickering: I think people often vote along a party line because that's what they really believe, and that's why they joined that particular party. But a republic is built upon the principle of debate, and a real debate only exists when each party can acknowledge that they don't have all the answers, and that the other party has some validity to their argument.

And so, though I hate to find myself saying this, I'm keeping my eye on the right wing for glimmers of hope (however small) that a loyal conservative opposition may appear. And slowly but surely, they are starting to emerge.

• Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins. I don't expect them to defer to the Democrats on every issue, but at least they've demonstrated an ability to listen.
  
  
• John Feehery, a lobbyist and former staffer for GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert wrote a remarkably mild-mannered (though somewhat naive-sounding) column for CNN encouraging civil debate:
  

  Instead, Republicans should allow themselves to like the president, just as they fight against his policies. And as they fight his policies, they should do all that they can to market their own ideas so that the American people understand that the Republicans have positive alternatives that will make our country stronger, safer and more prosperous in the future.

• John McCain, who I've said plenty of unkind words about over the last year or so, is wrangling with his party and trying to convince them to make a positive contribution and not aim solely to sink the Obama administration. Obama's budget passed on a party-line vote, but during the debate, John McCain was pushing for the GOP to put forward a full alternative budget which would suggest a vision of how they wanted to move forward. The GOP platform seems to be a completely context-free, generic "More tax cuts, less spending, more aggression, fewer earmarks" platform. McCain is absolutely guilty of wearing all of those hats and wearing them until they're threadbare. But a fully fleshed out proposal planning out how those principles would help the country would be a far better contribution to the public discourse than the reflexive nay-saying we're getting now. The GOP leaders opposing McCain suggest that it's "not their job" to make a budget since they're in the minority. I would argue that as elected officials and civic leaders it is absolutely their damn job and even when I'm feeling bipartisan (like right now) I'm not giving them an ounce of respect until they show some sort of comprehension that they have responsibilities to accomplish things. Until then, much to my chagrin, I'll have to look to John McCain to provide principled leadership on the right.
  
  
• Charles Krauthammer. No, really. Stop laughing! I cite as evidence that Krauthammer is providing a valuable discourse his column from last Friday. He laughs off the conservative hysteria over Obama's promise to back manufacturer warrantees on all American cars, because he knows that that's a sideshow for Obama.
  

  Obama has far different ambitions. His goal is to rewrite the American social compact, to recast the relationship between government and citizen. He wants government to narrow the nation's income and anxiety gaps. Soak the rich for reasons of revenue and justice. Nationalize health care and federalize education to grant all citizens of all classes the freedom from anxiety about health care and college that the rich enjoy. And fund this vast new social safety net through the cash cow of a disguised carbon tax.

  All of this is, as far as I can tell, is completely accurate. As a liberal, I see no problems with this. I think healthcare is a right and I have no problem saying it. I believe in levelling the economic playing field enough that opportunity is equalized (though absolutely not the rewards for utilizing those opportunities), and I have absolutely no problem using taxes on pollution to help do it. I see Krauthammer as so valuable to the debate because I think he is as brilliant analytically as he is amoral. He is interested in strength, intelligence, and success. Human rights are a principle to be fought for in words, as a tool for condemning other countries, but have no meaning to him. Social justice is folly, and weakness. Conciliatory foreign policy is something to be mistrusted. But as I think I've made evident by now, my interest is in generating valuable, considered dissent, which Krauthammer never fails with. Liberals don't trust Goldman Sachs, and they shouldn't. By the same token, Krauthammer doesn't trust Russia, and as far as I can see, he shouldn't. We need men like Barack Obama to create a vision of an America worth living in, who are wary of unregulated markets. And we need people like Charles Krauthammer who are devoted to their cold analysis to remind us that sometimes paranoia is justified, that being nice can't be our only foreign policy, the government won't fix human nature, and who will take the baby out of the bath before we dump the water. When I read his columns, I'm often enraged. But I've found that there are two types of partisan rage: the kind where someone is spouting nonsense and people are paying attention, and the kind where you're furious because someone has made a logical point that contradicts your political dogma. More often than not, Krauthammer incites the latter. Many liberals mourned just as conservatives did over the death of William F. Buckley because he was dedicated to the truth as he saw it, to his idea of a better America, not to his party. I won't go so far as to state that Krauthammer is on the same level as Buckley, but I do believe his loyalty lies in the same place, and he's a better option than Jonah Goldberg, Ramesh Ponnuru, or any of those other goofs at the National Review.
  

I suppose what I'm trying to get out of this is that I'm gradually starting to have more faith in the "marketplace of ideas" than I have in my lifetime. We have a good president with a nimble intellect who is willing to listen to his opposition. In addition to a liberal population that got their shouting muscles warmed up during the Bush presidency calling for action on the left, there's valuable analysis and even a (limited) desire to propose alternative solutions on the right. And even if it's only represented by three lonely senators whose party has them on the chopping block, at least someone in the elected opposition is willing to listen. What I want from Washington is for Barack Obama to push as hard as he can for his position, with rational people making principled arguments that he's wrong. And I want him to hear them out, and adopt their ideas when they're worthwhile. This is the beautiful, foolish idealism -- and the challenge -- laid forth by the founding fathers when they gave us our free speech and our democratic republic. I want to see our country get closer to meeting that challenge, and I think it's possible we might be inching forward.



*Anecdotal evidence: the company I work for has a number of its interests wrapped up in development in China. I was able to write all of this at work, almost entirely in one afternoon.

"Sob Story" (or, "I'm Frustrated")

I just watched the full, unedited interview between Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money. I was a little surprised and annoyed this morning when I started seeing a fake news show making headlines on real newspapers, but as I watched the interview unfold, it made more sense. America, as a collective, feels like it has been swindled by the people it trusted to make money for all of us. Stewart was in fine form. He had clips ready for ambush, he never once pulled a punch out of courtesy for a guest who had pretty much folded (literally: watch Cramer's slouch get deeper and deeper through the interview) after the first minute, and he did more than just whine about the failures - he had solutions for how CNBC can stop screwing people. It was stunningly cathartic. Comedy Central has the interview divided into three parts which you can find here, here, and here.

I felt good after that, like I'd gotten some token measure of justice. Then a fellow I (now no longer) work with came in, gave me his personal contact information, and in a voice that wasn't too good at disguising his grief, told me what he was going to be doing with all of his newfound spare time.

You can yell at a child for breaking a glass, but the glass is still broken.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

I wrote this on February 8, 2004. It has been slightly edited to make more sense to people that aren't me.

Saturday morning, I got up much earlier than I wanted to in order to go to the Heartland Cafe, where my father and I heard the delightful words of Barack Obama. If the world is a just place, Barack Obama will be America's first black president (I'm presuming, of course, that George W. Bush will manage to hold out against stunningly talented and straight-shooting political savant Al Sharpton). Everything he said was exactly what needed to be said, he's articulate but not snooty, he's reasonable about his expectations, he has the respect of his peers . . . I want this man to be my senator. You could say that I am a strange overly idealistic youngster who doesn't know his political ass from his political elbow. But afterwards, my dad and I went to the Little Corner Restaurant and he was beaming with admiration. In his words, he hasn't been this excited about a politician since Bobby Kennedy.

The world might be a just place after all. This morning, when I considered what was going to happen today, I wept with joy. We've got a long way to go, but we've got a good man at the helm.

Hmm, guess he isn't too busy these days.

Writing for Slate, Eliot Spitzer discusses the auto industry bailout. His solution? Let the Big Three fight it out to determine which two companies get funding. I wish that I knew more about this issue to comment on the merits of this idea, but I don't. However, upon reading the article, my initial thought was, "And what happens to that third company?" I'm also not sure about his notion of not needing a so-called "car czar," because it certainly seems as if he's auditioning for the role.

Any thoughts?