In my lifetime, Americans have tended to get worn out and generally tired of their leaders towards the end of their term. With the possible exception of Eisenhower and Ford, who were like transitional caretaker nice guy presidents, and the unfortunate Kennedy, most of them have been on the verge of being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. Reagan was different, a president I personally despised, but who many Americans loved and who was more like the daffy old uncle who makes a fool of himself at New Years.
Our current president is going out with a bang like we have never seen before. His fall is so steep with the recent economic plunge, that I think his fall is almost protean. Unfortunately his mythical crash and burn inflicts real collateral damage on people like you and me. How much of his misery was self inflicted? Karl Rove said early on that all you needed was a 51% majority and that was President Bush's general method of governance. Ram it down their throats with no thoughts of compromise. Surround yourself with yes men, beholden to lobbyists, large oil companies and other special interests and pretend that you understand what's going on. Bush was certainly not helped by having the malevolent evil one lurking around as second in command.
There are very few things in life as painful as watching an idiot pretend that they possess knowledge or wisdom. As we take the long painful road back to healing, we need to squash some of the basic canards of the Republican intelligentsia. The free unregulated market is the market that is about to do itself in. Companies can not police themselves. We don't have the funds or authority to act as the world's policeman. You can't institute record spending and grant tax cuts without creating a real problem. When Richard Clarke gives you a memo in August that someone is planning to fly a plane into the World Trade Center, investigate...
Before today's market plunge, it was reported that American's had lost about 20% of their nest egg or about two trillion dollars. Will these people ever become whole? You, your parents? Bernanke's academic specialty was the history of economic crisis and he landed smack dab into the middle of the greatest one in generations. He lacked the power and gravitas of Volker and Greenspan and apparently Wall Street had carte blanche. Ditto Paulson. Over at S.E.C. Christopher Cox just left the undercapitalization barn door wide open and said come and get it.
I don't know why anyone would want to be President of this country. There has to be something wrong with them. With a culturally divided congress and electorate, we have totally lost the middle ground. I feel sorry for whichever man is left to pick up the pieces.
3 comments:
Robert... well stated!!!
I will be voting for Barack, but I almost hope he is not elected just because he seems to be a nice guy and I can't imagine how difficult his task will be.
Good luck to him and all of us!!! ... and good riddance to Bush, Cheney, Rove and the rest of them!!!
Saturday
October 11, 2008
With regard to former Congressman Christopher Cox (R - Newport Beach), now the Bush-appointed current head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and only now (in a classic example of yells about shutting the barn door, after the horse has already gone from the barn)coming under criticism for his lax supervisory oversight regarding bank capitalization, and for his "too-brief and too-late" restrictions on the much abused use of "naked""short-selling" in the financial sector's equity markets, I would like to offer a personal - very personal - insight.
I did not know him very well at my alma mater, Leland Stanford Junior University. However, I met him socially on several occasions. Cox was one of those almost overly handsome, well-groomed, jut-jawed "studly" types, who radiated a deep conviction of his own importance, "coolness" and (of course, desirability to the opposite sex).
As David Brooks has said in describing such narcissistic personalities as they traverse the arc of their careers, he (Cox) early on developed that "coating of arrogance" which only the supremely self-centered and supremely self-absorbed can attain, and publicly show in its fully developed state.
Even then, you could tell what his politics would be and, in a generic but focused sense, what his life (and our cosmetically focused culture) would bring to him.
It did. Unfortunately, and as well, he brought it to us. Now, after the damage, there are loud criticisms of him, and calls for his resignation, in The Wall Street Journal and in The Financial Times of London.
Some things, as the French say, never, ever change.
And also, in the words of the poet W.H. Auden:
"Time will say nothing but 'I told you so'"...
JudgeRoyBean
Thank you, Judge...
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