Posted inPolitics: National

Five years that changed America, whether we know it or not

After five years of war in Iraq, we know a few things. None of them gives us much comfort for the future.

We know that, contrary to President Bush after 9/11 (used as a false pretense for waging war in Iraq), that everything did not change. That was certainly true on the home front. For the first time in American history, taxes were cut as the nation went to war. Most Americans were asked to make no sacrifices at all — indeed, we were told to "consume" more (imagine that admonition from FDR). Americans continued the unthinking choices that helped lead to the mess in the Middle East, chiefly driving ever longer distances in automobiles. Televised and electronic distractions continued and even increased. Many Americans still believe Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack. The media unthinkingly report on "al Queda" in Iraq, although it is a separate group of insurgents that emerged as a result of the invasion. Most Americans, it seems, have "moved on."

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

The strange media romance with John McCain

Breaking 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.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

The recession this time

Another 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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Posted inPolitics: National

Lies, damned lies, and withdrawal from Iraq

It’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.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

Who is this ‘maverick’ I keep hearing about?

Every 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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