'A pen warmed up in hell' | Reality-based commentary about Phoenix, Arizona, and the nation.
8The news story begins, "Has Janet Napolitano lost her mojo?" And I am thinking about how the older core readers, loyal but constantly abused by the newspaper, are wondering, "What the hell is a mojo?" In any event, it continues:
Unthinkable even a year ago, the question is circulating among some of
the governor’s watchers at the Capitol. They’re struck by an
administration seemingly put on its heels by a stumbling state economy,
rash of key staff departures and, most recently, the disqualification
from the November ballot of her two most favored initiatives.
What was unthinkable until Monday was that the Arizona Republic would ever print anything even mildly critical of the governor, aside from the dreary sameness of the protected Republican political op on the editorial page. Napolitano was close friends with former publisher Sue Clark-Johnson. This, along with the Republic’s war against having experienced journalists consistently cover state government (or any beat), ensured that the governor would be treated with something like uninformed reverence.
The reality is that Napolitano never stood astride state government like a colossus. The faded "glory days" mentioned in the story were neither glorious nor had much to do with her. Nor did she have "absolute dominance" over the Legislature. The reality is more complex, and more interesting.
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No CommentsLet me begin my convention observations by saying: I don’t trust the media. Whatever the Democrats and Obama do, it will be "the wrong thing" per the corporate media narrative. He still hasn’t "sealed the deal" and "closed the sale." He "lacks specifics" — a lie — and if he provided more, they would be instant red meat. If 75,000 people in the stadium hear one of the great speeches of our time — as happened in Philadelphia on the race issue — it will be swept away by the coiffed broomheads of television pundits.
As Michelle’s speech confirmed, the Obama’s have done everything the "conservatives" demand of black folks — and they’re still "foreign." He’s a celebrity — that’s bad. Americans "don’t know who he is" — as if they know who the hell John McCain is. He’s "not one of us" — as if that has any meaning in an America of diverse life paths, or that a former POW, longtime right-wing capo and rich consort of a beer heiress is "one of us." "One of us" is a stupid person, as the media would have it — because, after all, education and the ability to speak in complete sentences = elitism.
The best way to watch the convention is on CSPAN, so you hear all the speeches, not merely the prime-time ones that are filtered and "interpreted" by the bubbleheads. Of course, most Americans don’t do this. So they watch the prime-time spectacle as the Democrats try, again, to figure out how to beat the Republicans. Somehow eight years of misgovernment on an unprecedented scale isn’t enough. Nor is the obvious failure/scam that is "conservative ideas" in action. The right has wrecked the country and yet the presidential polls, if they are to be believed, show Obama struggling to stay even.
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No CommentsAs the Democratic National Convention begins in Denver, the world will see the First City of the Intermountain West. It’s not Phoenix (population 1.5 million; metro 4.1 million), which sits in its desert frying pan like an overweight couch potato. It is Denver (pop. 567,000; metro 2.9 million). It’s another reminder that population alone is more likely to mean problems than strength. Let me tell you about one of my adopted hometowns.
Delegates will see a sparkling downtown and central city that have made a remarkable comeback from their fading 1980s. It’s genuine live-work-play. They can ride one of the best light-rail systems in the country, soon to be muscled up with commuter and light rail reaching more than 100 additional miles; the hub will be historic Union Station. Lovely old neighborhoods close to the core have been preserved and revived. Miles of bike and walking paths, including along Cherry Creek, flow seamlessly into a walkable, dense downtown. Nearby, the Cherry Creek district is a delightful walkable shopping area.
This city that sits at the edge of the arid Great Plains (it was the Queen City of the Plains before the Mile High City) is blessed with shady streets and gorgeous parks. It’s rich in culture, with a superb performing arts center and art museum, and edge, with many galleries, coffee houses and warehouse spaces. Chain stores and local stores, historic architecture and avant-garde, sit side by side along 16th Street and in lively Lower Downtown. Four pro sports teams play in downtown stadiums, which only enhanced the move to preserve historic buildings full of real businesses, and add to the downtown population. Where the old Stapleton Airport once stood is one of the nation’s top New Urbanist developments.
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2President-elect McCain’s inability to recall how many houses he owns fits into a larger and more troubling pattern. The problem is not just that he is an out-of-touch rich guy.
This is the candidate who repeatedly confused Shiite and Sunni — all the while trumpeting his expertise on the Middle East. At one point, his sock puppet Joe Lieberman had to whisper the facts in his ear. He couldn’t tell Sudan from Somalia. He kept talking about a nation that hasn’t existed for years. Iraq and Pakistan share a border, the senator wrongly said, and the Sunni awakening happened ‘after’ the surge (edited out by CBS). He said he didn’t know much about economics, then denied saying such a thing. He spoke of a withdrawal timetable one day, then denied saying it later. He volunteered Cindy for a topless contest. Then there was the stupendous dead space and mumbling when he was questioned about claiming Obama was playing the race card. He claimed he walked through Baghdad without body armor or protection, etc., etc. Most of this has been captured on tape.
What’s going on? Neither obvious answer is comforting. He’s either going senile as he nears 72, or he’s lying and unprepared on critical issues without realizing how easily this can be caught in a YouTube era. (Whether the duhs and ignos — those ‘undecided voters’ and angry Clintonites — will care, is another, depressing matter). Either one of these answers should disqualify him for the White House, particularly because so many of his misstatements, confusions and subsequent lies come about issues where he claims superior experience and judgment.
But next consider all his flip flops, over torture, warrantless wiretapping, tax cuts, Social Security, abortion rights, engaging with Hamas, nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, offshore drilling, etc. Once the presumptive nominee, he said Social Security was "an absolute disgrace.’ His chief economic adviser and likely Treasury secretary called Americans a ‘nation of whiners’ and said the recession was in our heads. This from a rich man who helped deregulate banking, profited from it, then profited again from the current deregulated banking crisis. Soon after McCain reversed course to support drilling, oil industry contributions poured in.
The above is not a disjointed laundry list. When we combine it with McCain’s obvious mental fatigue, the really disturbing picture comes clear.
5I saw a curious headline recently in the Arizona Republic: "Event Center could add life to downtown." Curious, because downtown is brimming with "event centers," from the convention center to hotel ballrooms to (I guess) what’s left of the star-crossed and badly located Bentley Projects. The story was actually sad and illustrative.
If I read it correctly (and one never knows, now that editors have become graphics clerks), the owners of relatively historic buildings at Madison and Fifth Avenue lost the business leasing their space. Now, they "are working to make the Fifth Avenue and Madison Event Center one of downtown Phoenix’s premier spots." (Editors used to prevent reporters from using embarrassing hyperbole; also, is the address in the story correct?). The "center" can be used for "weddings, bar mitzvahs, business corporate outings…" Surely, the next McCormick Place.
At least the owners aren’t tearing the buildings down, an act of city-encouraged vandalism that has devastated downtown Phoenix. But here’s a small but telling example of what holds back the center city: lack of private investment. I hate to sun on ASU’s parade of finishing one dorm tower — heavy lifting in an education-hating state, to be sure. But until a simple older set of buildings such as these on Madison are used by businesses doing daily commerce, downtown will remain an underachiever.
6I’ve heard several stories about John McCain’s "tough stance" over the Russian-Georgian conflict on NPR, how it helps burnish his "national security credentials." Similar stories appear elsewhere in the supposedly liberal media. Rarely in the same story do we hear or read that McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann is also a well-paid lobbyist for the nation of Georgia. The "liberal" New York Times snuck this fact into an inside story under the innocuous ("don’t bother to read me") headline: "In Split Role, McCain Adviser is Sometimes a Lobbyist."
Were the situations reversed, this would be a scandal of the first magnitude for Barack Obama. But, as I have noted before, the corporate media and corporate rulers of America have to take him out. So here is one more way to do it. Forgive me for being cynical — after two stolen presidential elections, the serial scandals of the Bush years, secret energy task force, etc. — but are we seeing a new cold war ginned up to benefit McCain?
Where is our ‘liberal’ mainstream media on reports of Karl Rove meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, soon after the Georgian leader met with Condoleezza Rice in July. Hello?…Any curiosity? The White House has denied that Rice gave a green light to the impulsive Georgian president. Ah, but I remember all those color-coded "threat" warnings being raised and "high profile" terror arrests that went nowhere during the 2004 campaign. They succeeded in scaring enough people to make it a close enough election to steal.
McCain could win just because enough voters won’t cast a ballot for a black man, but the oligarchy apparently isn’t taking any chances. As usual, the national interests of the United States are cast aside.
10In his book, American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips wrote about the new phenomenon of fundamentalist religion in driving American policy, including U.S. military adventures in "the Middle Eastern Bible lands." He goes on: "The
rapture, end-times, and Armageddon hucksters in the United States rank
with any Shiite ayatollahs, and the last two presidential elections
mark the transformation of the GOP into the first religious party in
U.S. history."
That this remains true was clear from President-elect McCain’s kissing of Rick Warren’s ring at the suburban megachurch over the weekend, to the rapturous applause of the Orange County "conservative" congregation. The "maverick," in his desperate effort to get elected, mouthed all the Republican culture war theocratic platitudes. "Paris is worth a mass," as Henry of Navarre said. Now it comes out that McCain may have violated the "cone of silence" and known in advance the questions to be asked. That Obama went into this hostile environment at all is to be commended, I suppose. That he gave thoughtful answers will not help him at all with the anti-intellectual, know-nothing "Southernized" (to use Phillips’ word) American electorate.
I write "I suppose" about Obama because of those stubborn words in Article VI of the Constitution: "…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
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