'A pen warmed up in hell' | Reality-based commentary about Phoenix, Arizona, and the nation.
1NAFTA figured heavily into the Democratic primary in Ohio, yet most of the news coverage and the debates themselves proved unsatisfying. We were served the canard that NAFTA helps consumers but hurt manufacturing jobs. NPR made it sound as if the trade agreement’s consequences are ancient history. The Democrats were more muted on NAFTA in Texas, where Laredo has boomed as a trade port.
Of course, NAFTA is a proxy for trade liberalization and globalization. China has hurt Ohio manufacturing more than Mexico. So, too, have the domestic automakers, undergirding the state economy, that continue to make boring, homely cars that fewer Americans want to buy.
But the real issue goes deeper even than that, and any fixes will be problematic. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make them.
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No CommentsBreaking up is hard to do, particularly with a lover you’ve idealized to the point of pathology. So what if the reality is as jarring, even dangerous, odds with the ideal? So it is with the mainsteam media and John McCain.
We were treated to this once again in the Sunday New York Times. A front page story described how this "maverick," "insurgent," "one of the most disruptive figures in his party" and "rebel" is now trying to be a standard-bearer who can unite his party. There was mention of his "volcanic" blowups, but in an admiring way.
On the op-ed page, Nicholas Kristof writes, "Even for those of us who shudder at many of John McCain’s positions,
there is something refreshing about a man who wins so many votes
despite a major political shortcoming: he is abysmal at pandering."
Such is the scary fog of McCain worship that envelops even smart people writing for the best newspaper in America. The reality is quite different.
No CommentsFor the second time in two weeks, the New York Times has produced major stories on Phoenix and illegal immigration (read the stories here and here). It’s about time the nation took notice of Phoenix’s second largest industry (after house building): people smuggling. Many of the immigrants that staff the chicken plants of North Carolina and the meat-packing plants of the upper plains states came through Phoenix.
This industry has caused a low-intensity war to be fought on the streets of Phoenix and its suburbs for several years, recently leading to the gunning down of a police officer. Of the millions who have gone through the city, many have settled. A third of the city is officially Hispanic, but the real numbers are probably far larger and many are illegal. Meanwhile, the Anglo population, whether from the Midwest or from Arizona, has increasingly rebelled against the influx. Arizona has passed some of the most draconian laws against illegals, and the state is full of anti-Hispanic sentiment, much of expressed in the most thuggish manner (check out any blog or story comment on the Arizona Republic if you doubt me).
But the situation is complex and contradictory. It’s not rocket science. It’s much, much more complicated.
2In a different world, with different Clintons — the idealized ones, not the real ones — Hill and Bill might have given more serious thought to their current endeavor. If she’s elected, her husband would not only be the first first gentleman, but a former president carrying the influence and power of that position.
George Washington was painfully aware that everything he did set a precedent, so he endeavored to set them with care and character. Bill Clinton set off in his usual fashion, the smartest man in the room, too smart for his own good. The Southern intellectual who forgot the redneck’s last words: "Hey, y’all, watch this!" With the Clintonian combination of recklessness and carelessness, he alone may have cost his wife the nomination by alienating so many in the South Carolina primary.
The Founders of this Republic frowned on anything smacking of the dynastic. And even when sons have followed fathers — twice — it hasn’t worked out well. Not for nothing did George H.W. Bush jokingly call his son "Quincy." The Clintons propose something far closer to real dynasty. He will be there, like his wife before him, as buy-one-get-two co-president. And, as usual, they seemed to be unaware of the magnitude of their ambition, and the care with which it needed to be presented to the nation.
Yet this may be one of the lesser problems with Hillary Clinton.
2Another recession, and for many Americans the post-2001 recovery and expansion felt like one long tough slog. It would have felt worse had they been living within their means, but liar-loan mortgages, bottomless credit cards and cheap stuff from China allowed them to think they were rolling in the good times, just like the hedge-fund managers and CEOs.
Another recession, and it won’t be like 2001, when a fraud-driven bubble burst, or 1991, when the savings-and-loan scandal sank the economy. It will have fraud, bursting bubbles and unsustainable finance, to be sure. But it may be far worse than anything we have experienced since 1982, maybe longer.
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No CommentsIt’s easy to beat up John McCain for wanting to stay the bloody course in Iraq, indeed that America might have troops there for next 100 years. McCain’s strategy won’t be merely more of the same. It will be a push way down the slippery slope. But there’s much wishful thinking and dissembling on the part of the Democrats, too.
If Iraq really were another Vietnam, withdrawal would be without serious geopolitical consequences. Yet we shouldn’t forget the moral consequences of our withdrawal, with millions of South Vietnamese facing a brutal takeover and thousands who worked for us facing far worse. Hmong tribesmen who supported the CIA’s secret war in Laos are still on the run, abandoned by the superpower that so cavalierly used them. We should have gotten out. We shouldn’t forget that the cost was high.
But Iraq is not Vietnam, a fact that should be remembered every time a Democrat drives home from an anti-war rally in his SUV.
2Every time I hear the media say Sen. John McCain "of Arizona" it makes me crazy. McCain has done as little for Arizona as possible and it shows. The state is Mississippi in the Southwest, an Appalachia with golf courses, the epicenter of a brewing socio-environmental calamity. It is a place frighteningly behind in the competitive world of the 21st century, however much it provides a haven for a certain kind of rich person and, until recently, for real-estate players. Arizona was never anything but a national political platform for McCain.
If McCain had been governor, his apathy would be an especially tempting target. Even so, as a senator he has done as little as possible in education, research, transportation, health care, the environment…the list goes on and on. Most days one wondered if Arizona even had senators representing it, rather than trying to be national political figures.
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