Carly Fiorina on The Huffington Post

Lloyd Chapman: Obama Stimulus Plan Could Favor Venture Capitalists Over Middle Class Firms

2009-01-07T11:18:25Z

In a recent appearance on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer , two of our nation's top economic experts agreed on how to best stimulate the faltering American economy. Former Clinton Administration economic adviser Laura Tyson and one of Senator John McCain's top economic advisers and former Hewlett-Packard President Carly Fiorina noted the simplest and most powerful way to create jobs and boost the national economy would be to channel government infrastructure funds to America's nearly 27 million small businesses.

U.S. Census Bureau statistics tell us 98 percent of all U.S. firms have less than 100 employees and these firms are responsible for creating over 85 percent of all new jobs and employ over 56 percent of all private sector workers.

Congress realized the vital role small businesses play in the U.S. economy when they passed the Small Business Act in 1953. Longstanding federal laws, which established federal contracting goals for small businesses and firms owned by women, minorities and veterans are based on the understanding that small businesses are the heart and soul of our nation's economy.

President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress will likely ignore economic experts like Laura Tyson and Carly Fiorina when they roll out the latest economic stimulus plan. (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0812/21/le.01.html)

As opposed to proposing policies and legislation that could create millions of new jobs for middle class American's, the Obama stimulus plan will likely propose changes in federal law that could dismantle existing federal programs designed to direct government infrastructure funds to the small businesses where most Americans work.

Obama's plans will likely include support for a change in the federal definition of a small business as being "independently owned." The new definition will be promoted as "increasing access to capital" for small businesses. In reality, it will allow firms that are not "independently owned" but are actually owned and controlled by some of our nation's wealthiest venture capitalists to have increased access to billions of dollars in federal contracts earmarked for legitimate small businesses.

Legitimate small businesses will find themselves in a head-to-head battle with firms controlled by wealthy individual venture capitalists and possibly even some of the largest venture capital companies in the country for even the smallest orders for government goods and services.

Billions of dollars in federal small business contracts will be diverted from middle class America and into the hands of a small number of wealthy venture capitalists. Thousands of legitimate small businesses will be forced out of business and thousands of jobs will be lost. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5QBPVJAeIE)

The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and its members have contributed millions of dollars to President Obama and key Democratic leaders in Congress like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The new loophole looks more like a political payback to wealthy contributors than a legitimate attempt to stimulate the national economy.

The new Obama economic stimulus plan will also most likely allow widely reported fraud and abuses in existing federal small business programs, which have diverted billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms to continue.

Although President Obama and the Democratic Congress will propose an economic stimulus plan that will offer some assistance to Americans struggling to deal with the failing economy; it will most likely be offset by their refusal to address longstanding fraud and abuse in existing federal small business programs, and the creation of a new loophole in federal contracting law for venture capitalists that will devastate the middle class economy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BucI3cCET1o)

If President Obama supports a new loophole for venture capitalists under the guise of "increasing access to capital" for small businesses, billions of dollars in federal infrastructure dollars will be diverted away from the 26 million small businesses where most American's work.

An Obama economic stimulus plan that does not address the abuses in existing federal small business programs and creates more loopholes for venture capitalists will probably kill more jobs than it will create.

Chris Kelly: The Shenzhenian Candidate: Meg Whitman Wants to be Governor of California

2009-01-06T13:39:39Z

A couple of years ago, someone was trying to sell Vietnamese women on eBay. The auction went on for three days before eBay closed it down. EBay policy strictly forbids the sale or purchase of humans, living or dead. (Sorry, Owners of Ted William's head.) But you can see where the slave trader had gotten the wrong impression. The CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, had built a career on one job after another exploiting Asian women, the younger and more vulnerable the better.

That's real world business experience she'll bring to Sacramento as your governor.

Yesterday Meg Whitman resigned from the board of directors at eBay and from two other corporate boards. A last step, we're told, before formally announcing that she's running for governor of California. She'll be campaigning as that most Republican of icons, the Successful Business Leader Who Can Get Things Done. And you can see why:

- She has a billion dollars. (True, it used to be $1.4 billion, but there's a lot of that going around.)

- She ran eBay. (Okay, and it kind of stinks of death lately, but that's not her fault. Or entirely her fault.)

- She saw the future and bought the cutting edge Internet phone service Skype. (eBay just took a $900 million write-down on it. But still.)

And if that's not enough -- if you don't love and trust her already -- she used to be on the board of directors at Goldman Sachs.

"Meg Whitman is one of the most dynamic and forward-looking leaders in business today. She is an outstanding addition to our Board, and we look forward to working with her." -- Henry Paulson, 10/1/01.

"We are grateful to Meg for the contribution she has made as a director. We have benefited from her insight and dedication, and thank her on behalf of Goldman Sachs and its shareholders." -- Henry Paulson, accepting her resignation, effective immediately, fourteen months later.

(And the strip search was just a formality.)

But she's not just a titan of industry. She brought that same gimlet-eyed vision to the world of politics. In the last year, since she changed her party affiliation from "decline to state" to "Republican," she served as finance chair for Mitt Romney ($86.1 million spent / 133 delegates / $647,000 per delegate) and then appeared at the convention to electrify a nation for John McCain.

(Don't remember her? She opened for Carly Fiorina, best known for laying off 18,000 workers at Hewlett-Packard. The theme of the night? "Prosperity." I'm not making that up.)

Meg Whitman will probably buy a lot of television commercials, and you probably won't hear the word "Republican" much. You'll hear the words "manage," "solutions" and "success." Which is a nice way of saying "She's rich."

And they won't talk about where Meg Whitman got rich before eBay. Her real expertise is in globalization. Which is the nice way of saying Asian sweatshops.

Here are some highlights from her résumé. See if you can spot a pattern.

"Prior to eBay, Meg was the General Manager of Hasbro Inc.'s Preschool Division. In this position, Meg was responsible for global management and marketing..."

Young workers in China who make holiday toys for Disney, Hasbro and RC2... report that their bodies are often covered with red welts from the bug bites, which can easily become infected if the wounds are scratched... Workers are at the factory 93 hours a week, toiling 13 and a half-hour shifts, seven days a week...

-- National Labor Committee Report

"Meg served as President of the Stride Rite Corporation's Stride Rite Division... She had also been Executive Vice President for the Keds Division..."

Sixteen-year-olds put toxic glue onto Keds sneakers with their bare hands. When we visited the factory in July 1999, they were producing Keds sneakers for Stride Rite... When you went through the adhesive department where they worked your eyes stung from the strong chemical vapors. There was no special ventilation, nor were gloves or masks provided to the workers. The company general manager said they came to China "for the cheap labor" and "to get away from the unions in South Korea." According to the company the average wage was 42 cents an hour.

-- Another National Labor Committee Report

"Meg spent 1989 to 1992 at the Walt Disney Company, highlighted by her work as the Senior Vice President of Marketing of the Disney Consumer Products Division. During this time, she... developed the strategy for Disney's entry into the book publishing business..."

NEW YORK (CNN) - The National Labor Committee... made new charges Thursday against The Walt Disney Company, releasing a videotape alleging that two Chinese factories making books for Disney operate under unsafe conditions. "There's blood on this book," Kernaghan said as he held up a copy of a child's book made in China and published by Disney.

I'm not saying everything Meg Whitman touches turns to slave labor, I'm just not saying it doesn't.

Also, in fairness, she's worked for at least four companies that didn't take whatever she was in charge of and move it to the Pearl River Delta.

Where she could pay people forty-two cents an hour.

Also, I feel legally compelled to say that Hasbro and Disney and Stride-Rite know a lot better than I do whether they're behaving ethically. I've never even been to China.

And maybe the National Labor Committee just doesn't like Meg Whitman.

My point is, you can't simply write off Meg Whitman as another egomaniac stooge, set up to fail by a Republican party that needs a candidate who can finance herself. She's a real person. With a genuine record. Of callous indifference not just to the dignity of labor, but to suffering in general.

Getting back to the Vietnamese girls who weren't, in the end, sold on eBay. Hung Nguyen of the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans thanked Meg Whitman by name for eBay's quick action. But he didn't think that would be the end of human trafficking in Asia.

"The only real alternative is to give countries opportunities for people to educate and better themselves. If we could improve the economic conditions in places like Vietnam and Cambodia, there would be less likelihood that people would sell themselves or their children into slavery or brothels.''

Obviously he didn't know who he was talking to.

Steve Parker: Ten most significant import cars, 2008 and beyond

2008-12-31T04:10:45Z

Happy New Year!

We've had the pleasure of helping to create and now write and and moderate this automotive blog beginning in June, 2008, and so far it has been an enlightening, exciting and very enjoyable journey. It's made me a better writer and researcher. Can't wait to see what happens next!

No one, least of all me, thought that the auto industry was going to be the #1 or #2 story in the world; we always knew Detroit would someday go through what they're experiencing now, but never expected all of this to happen so soon. It's been, as we used to say, a real trip.

As in our previous post about the most significant Detroit Three cars, this list is in no particular order and rather than naming a "best" or "most fun" or "best-looking," these are choices currently in showrooms or arriving there soon, all of which have some important feature or combination of features which makes them interesting and/or important. And we want to hear from you how we're right or wrong, and also want to know what cars should be on our list - but aren't.

2009 NISSAN ALTIMA HYBRID
On-sale now.

Nissan pays Toyota for borrowing their well-evolved hybrid system for Altima hybrid models, the company's first and still-only hybrid offering. Renault/Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn (pro: "Gone") says the real "next step" in automotive technology are full EVs, using advanced batteries, which Nissan has been developing for the past four (or more) years; the first Nissan EV should be in the US by year 2010. Nissan is selling a hybrid, says Ghosn, only because Americans expect them to offer one. The company's 2010 Maxima is available with a clean diesel engine, so Nissan is giving customers a choice of technologies. Hybrid mileage figures are 35 in-town, 33 highway. Base price is $26,650.

2009 EURO CLEAN DIESELS: AUDI, BMW, MERCEDES-BENZ, VOLKSWAGEN
Various models on-sale now.
(One of the clean diesel-equipped Audi SUVs which participated in a cross-country, NYC to LA trek with several other Audis and achieved more than 38mpg overall).

Once California's Air Resources Board (CARB) approved clean diesel engines for sale in the Golden State, that opened the floodgates for their sale in all 50 states. Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen all have clean diesel models in their US showrooms now; Detroit says clean diesels will be available in 2010, first in their full-size pickups. There are several large-scale projects nationwide to retrofit big rig truck engines with clean diesel technology; that's more than 11 million engines. VW's Jetta TDI starts at $21,990.

2009 HONDA FIT
On-sale now.

Fit is an example of Japan's very popular "kei-cars" (short for: keijidōsha, "light automobile"), which have engines of 660cc's or less and various size restrictions, now translated into an Americanized product. Kei-car buyers in Japan enjoy tax breaks and can avoid having to buy a license to park, a necessity for larger vehicles in Japan's big cities. Fit has a 1.5-liter engine producing a veritably throbbing 117 horsepower; mileage is 28 city, 35 highway with the automatic transmission (better mpg than the stick shift model). Honorable mention: Nissan Versa, Toyota Yaris. Pricing begins at $14,550.

2008 SMART
On-sale now.
(We shot this photo of the Smart ForTwo, the only Smart now on-sale in the US, at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show, when the Smart craze was revving-up in Japan).

Smart is the spawn of Germany's Mercedes-Benz (engineering) and Switzerland's Swatch watch (design and styling). In the US, Smart is only sold at around 75 of Roger Penske's new car dealerships (world's second-largest auto dealership group, with about 250 dealerships nationwide). Two-door coupe and convertible body styles are offered. The sole engine is a 71-hp 1.0-liter 3-cylinder that teams with a 5-speed automated manual transmission. Mileage is 33 in-town; 41 highway. Prices begin at $11,590.

2009/10 HYUNDAI/KIA
On-sale now.

Both companies are controlled by Hyundai, a South Korean "chaebol," a huge conglomerate of companies which is responsible for more than 10% of South Korea's gross national product. Over time, Kia and parent Hyundai (both receiving technical help from Japanese carmakers) improved their products, offered great warranties and are now nearly full-line carmakers. A V8 engine has also been developed; high-mileage "Blue Line" 2010 hybrids are expected in late 2009. Prices start as low as $11,070 (Hyundai's 2009 Accent) and $11,495 (Kia's 2009 Rio).

2010 LOTUS EVORA
On-sale early 2009.

Colin Chapman (sort of a British Carroll Shelby) founded the UK's Lotus in 1953, and since then the company has produced simple, light and nimble cars for the race track and the street. Evora will use the familiar 3.5-liter V6 engine made by Toyota, but in a mid-engine/rear drive configuration with 276-horsepower and mated to a 6-speed stick shift. Lotus, like Ferrari and Porsche, makes a lot of their money doing R&D and engineering work for other carmakers. EV-maker Tesla uses Lotus cars as the basis for their roadster. No mileage figures reported yet; this car is purely for weekend fun. Evora will cost above $75,000.

2010 MAZDA 3
On-sale mid-2009.

Mazda 3 models come in sedan and hatchback flavors, and, through their excellent styling, have almost single-handedly revived the hatchback segment, which had, by the '90s, grown old and cheap-looking to American buyers. Engine choices include a 2.0-liter (148-hp), 2.5-liter (156-hp) and turbocharged 2.3-liter models (263-hp), all four-bangers. Mazda and Honda are Japan's best engineering-oriented carmakers. 3's 2010 iteration will get a cosmetic "freshening" and more horsepower. 2009 models' mileage ranges from 18 city to 32 highway, depending on model; '09 pricing begins at $14,690.

2010 PORSCHE BOXSTER
On-sale mid-2009.
(Porsche's 2010 Boxster, with 2010 Cayman in the background, at their world introductions at the recent Los Angeles Auto Show).

Porsche belongs on any "significant cars" list; they're always up to something new. The 2010 Boxster and Cayman both had their world introductions at November's Los Angeles Auto Show. Porsche's Cayenne SUV is getting a VW-built clean diesel engine in late 2009 (in Europe; US sales not yet announced), and the Panamera, the company's first four-door, will be in the US in 2010 with a 385-horsepower 4.8-liter V8; a turbo version will make 500-horses. Displacing 2.9-liters, the newest Boxster's flat 6-cylinder "boxer" engine develops 255-hp. The 3.4-liter "lump" (what F1 engineers call engines) in the Boxster S with Direct Fuel Injection now delivers 310-hp. No official mpg figures yet; pricing is guessed at a minimum of $52,000 for the base model and $61,000 for the S.

2009 SUBARU IMPREZA WRX STI
On-sale now.
(The Los Angeles Auto Show's Subaru exhibit, with Travis Pastrana in video form from the X-games in front of a Subaru WRX STI race car).

Like Porsche, Subaru uses flat, boxer-style horizontally-opposed engines; so do BMW motorcycles. The newly-styled Impreza WRX STI packs a lot of technology in the company's ultimate street expression of their successful World Rally race cars. Vitals include: a 305-hp 2.5-liter DOHC intercooled, flat-four cylinder turbocharged engine, "Symmetrical All Wheel Drive," Brembo disc brakes and 18-inch alloy wheels. With all that horsepower, the car manages 17 mpg city and 23 highway. They can do better than that, though, and they should. It's a technical tour de force, starting at $34,995.

2010 TOYOTA VENZA
On-sale mid-2009.

This is the first all-new Toyota in some time, and the new-for-2009 4-door, five-passenger wagon slots between the Camry and Highlander in size and price while borrowing parts from both. For 2010, Venza will continue in a single trim level, which keeps prices down by making its actual assembly easier and faster. Venza can be ordered with front- or all-wheel drive. Engines include a 182-hp 2.7-liter 4-cylinder and a 268-hp 3.5-liter V6. A 6-speed automatic transmission is standard. Four-cylinder models can tow up to 2500 pounds, the V6 up to 3500. But where's the hybrid version? Camry and Highlander have them; Venza should, too. Expect mileage figures of 19 city to 29 highway depending on engine; base price is $25,975.

Some photos by www.SteveParker.com.

Roxana Badin: Merit is Not a Dirty Word

2008-12-01T10:16:57Z

This Thanksgiving weekend, as I watched events unfold abroad, I was most grateful that the foolishness of election time is over. I don't miss the comedy, the verbs gouged and adjectives gutted, the nouns torn at the seams and fashioned into slogans. Before November 5, the assumption was that the electorate preferred relating to the candidates to making sure they possessed the right qualities to lead. Drop the final 'g' from your gerunds, my friend, and you too can prove just how much you understand the needs of the country and belong in the White House! Substance was traded in for populist appeal. That was before November 5 and I give thanks.

We no longer have to witness McCain, a multi-millionaire war hero and senator, and Obama, an ivy league-educated lawyer, professor and junior senator, look solemnly at reporters and, lest they be labeled elitist, insist they are the most regular of the regular. Nor do we have to watch Sarah Palin, with her pointy finger and false dichotomies, unblinkingly accept a seat on the express train to the White House in the name of gender equality. I do not miss looking on, mouth hanging open, as her appeal seemed to grow exponentially by the day among a Republican base that felt "she's just like us!" and, it was hoped, among independents and former Hillary supporters who might overlook her diametrically opposed views because "she uses Tampax just like we do!" No, I don't miss that.

I don't miss, not even a little, the Crazy Straw logic. That if anyone dared to utter any objection to Palin, supporters would claim that she was more qualified than Obama because she'd made more "executive decisions." Using the same reasoning, the president of the Hair Club For Men would also be more qualified. When they weren't gushing over how Palin's just the kind of woman they'd like to share a diet soda with, they were waiving "executive decisions!" high and ecstatically. I'm so very grateful that's over.

I could have done without Carly Fiorina's humorless reaction to the Tina Fey impersonations in the name of women's rights. In her eagerness to cry wolf, she completely missed the reality of political satire. Worse, when she repeatedly spat out accusations of "sexism" like a village priest at an exorcism, she took for granted a word that has taken years of painstaking, hard work by thousands of women and men to make legitimate simply in order to help a woman win a position she was unfit for. This Thanksgiving, I am grateful that this is in our past.

Before November 5, we had to watch Lady Rothschild explain, without a hint of irony, that she chose to endorse McCain because Obama, brought up by a single mother with limited resources, is an elitist. I am thankful that now the word elite is used in the press with admiration to describe the Indian commandos who risked their lives in Mumbai. Sharpened up, it has been used during election campaigns to kill (just ask Michael Dukakis).

I won't miss how the word "exotic" was put to the test, which was, apparently, good for fruit, vacations, and nude dancers, but not for candidates running for president. I'm thankful that an Obama victory proved that his "exotic" attributes were not the cause for concern that Pat Buchanan and others had hoped. We no longer have to endure spurious claims of "socialism" and I note that, as Obama chooses his economic team, nobody is accusing him of being a socialist now.

In the end, there was only so much we could take. On November 5 we ran for the theater exit. We declared in a clear voice: "Hold it! We like intelligence and hard work, clear thinking and consideration!" We like it when words mean something, when the capacity to communicate is respected. Sense was restored. Demagoguery was packed up in the trunk with the rest of the costumes.

As we now watch President-elect Obama appoint his cabinet, I'm sure everyone would agree that the "Regular Guy" standard should go the way of the sub-prime mortgage. After November 5, we no longer look to some stranger who claims to be a plumber to help us assess which economic road is best. Why did we before?

Followers of Lee Atwater-view politics as a game to be won at all costs. Maybe they didn't play the best game this year. Maybe the fact that this kind of cynicism didn't win has less to do with voters who saw through the pandering and more to do with an economy in dire straits. You can manipulate an electorate only for so long. If people are losing their homes, they can no longer be played like fiddles.

Maybe there's a deeper reason. When anything goes and no one is concerned about language, a kind of word deflation occurs that is dangerous in bleak times. Perhaps we felt it in our bones. Without respect for language, there is no compass, no north and south. We need words to help guide us. There was no more accurate measurement with which to assess which candidate was better qualified in this election than how each candidate used words to communicate who he was. One candidate did so thoughtfully and honestly; the other tried to use words to create the illusion that he was no better than we are. He lost.

When my Romanian parents arrived in the United States, they knew that the best way to unlock a country was by learning its language. I still have the dictionary that they used over the years to familiarize themselves with the nuances of English. Sometimes I'll come across a check or question mark or a word underlined. I take these markings as a testament to their wonder about the place in which they chose to build a new life. Appreciation for words is an appreciation for the future.

Given the choice between feeling validated about the place into which we were born and feeling assured about the future of the country in which we live we chose the latter. Even now, looking back on the newspapers and magazines that litter my floor, there is a basic premise that has changed since November 5: merit is no longer a dirty word.

Happy Thanksgiving.

David Quigg: Dear Conservatives: Break Some Liberal Hearts. Vote Obama.

2008-11-03T14:50:48Z

No group in America would have more trouble adjusting to an Obama presidency than the Bush Liberals.

With the president's approval rating so deep in the tank, you might question whether there really is such a thing as a Bush Liberal. Let me explain.

This isn't about ideology or policy. This is about mindset -- a Bush mindset, a with-us-or-against-us mindset. These are folks whose version of the politics of hope is to hope that Barack Obama didn't really mean what he said in his 2004 Democratic convention speech, didn't really mean what he wrote in his books, and doesn't really mean all that he's preached during this grueling campaign about the need for healing, unity, bipartisanship, cooperation, and mutual respect. These Bush Liberals have fumed through eight long years of Bush-Cheney.

They. Want. Payback.

They want payback and they're simply not going to get it. Not with an Obama presidency.

Go ahead. Break their hearts. Vote for Obama on Tuesday.

If you want a glimpse of whose hearts exactly you'll be breaking, read through some of the comments that people posted online back in January when Obama told the Reno Gazette-Journal editorial board that Ronald Reagan "changed the trajectory of America" by rallying voters who'd rejected the "excesses of the 1960s and 1970s" and had decided "government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating."

Here's one of the online comments Obama's remarks triggered:

"I've been trying to tell people that Obama is way too much like Reagan for my comfort level. His supporters do not see this at all. I wouldn't even mind if I felt Obama really had the potential to realign American politics. But unlike Reagan, Obama is just trying to build an electoral coalition based on hope and optimism, without also using every opportunity to educate people about why conservatives and Republicans are the problem. In Obama's world, partisanship is the problem. He is way off base."

Now, that quote only goes so far. I'm not trying to peddle nonsense here. While there are an eye-popping array of people from the Reagan White House who have endorsed Obama, I'm not trying to trick anyone into believing that a vote for Obama is a vote for a third Reagan term. Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, makes plain the areas in which he thinks Reagan's policies left many Americans worse off.

So if you're the type of conservative who thinks the lesson of Reagan is that trickle-down economics is a cure-all for every woe at every moment in American history, you shouldn't vote for Obama. He's not your guy. Never will be.

But you should be giving Obama a good, close look if you're the type of conservative who thinks the lesson of Reagan is that the U.S. government must deliver value to taxpayers and foster, as Obama put it, "that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship" that had gone missing during the Carter administration. Because those observations Obama made about Reagan back in January were not some unintended gaffe during his talk with that editorial board. He'd covered the same basic territory back in 2006 when he published The Audacity of Hope. He wrote there's a "good deal of truth" to Reagan's "central insight ... that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing the pie."

Such words, obviously, are not what you want to read if you're a Bush Liberal, a with-us-or-against-us liberal. Specifically, it's not what you want to read if you're that blog commenter I quoted above who thinks Democratic politics should be about seizing "every opportunity to educate people about why conservatives and Republicans are the problem."

Confession time. There's some Bush Liberal in me. Going way back. Supposedly, I spent part of my Watergate-era toddlerhood stomping around my neighborhood, chanting "Put him behind bars!" about Nixon. During high school and college, I tossed around the word "fascist" with a shameful disregard for its real meaning or history.

Two things changed me.

1) As you'll see if you are ever bored enough to read my HuffPost bio, I went into a life-changing political hibernation when I became a newspaper reporter. It's not a job you can do honorably while clinging to your ideological biases. I cared deeply about doing the job honorably. My political biases just fell away. I came to prize candor above all else. For a reporter who cares about accuracy, sources who spin are basically useless; honest sources are priceless. The source I came to respect most happened to be a Republican. Now that I've quit journalism and had my political awareness shocked back to life by the incompetence and lawlessness of the Bush-Cheney years, I can see just how much my old Republican source and I differ in our political views. But he's running for reelection to statewide office right now and I just voted for him. Again.

2) Barack Obama's message has changed me even more. It's one thing for me to look past ideology and vote for a former source because he demonstrated his integrity to me -- one-on-one, repeatedly, without fail. It's quite another thing to seek out conservative ideas and open myself to the possibility that they might have something useful to teach me. But that's something I do now. Because Obama's words have persuaded me that my kids' futures will be brightest if we can stop glaring at each other across ideological divides. It hasn't hurt, either, that I read Team of Rivals this spring and learned all about the dream-team cabinet Lincoln assembled from the political foes he beat out for the presidency.

There are flashes when I see so clearly how much I've changed. One such flash came Sunday when my phone lit up with an e-mail from a good friend. She'd forwarded something titled "Fair Warning," a satirical letter to America's red states, threatening a blue-state secession if "you manage to steal this election too." There's stuff like this: "We get Harvard. You get Ole Miss. We get 85% of venture capitalists. You get Alabama."

Now, the old-old me would have found "Fair Warning" hilarious. The post-journalism, Bush/Cheney-loathing, pre-Obama me would have taken some grim, vengeful comfort in passages such as "you ... will have to cope with 88% of obese Americans (and their projected healthcare costs)."

Suddenly, though, I'm the jerk who's become so allergic to words like those that I sit in my car in a supermarket parking lot, tapping out an instant response to my poor, unsuspecting friend. As politely as I can manage, I write that "this seems like an unhelpful moment to be quite so condescending." I go on to be all preachy about how we shouldn't look down our noses at Ole Miss. I cite a public-radio piece I heard about how the univeristy has transcended the ugly reputation it earned during the civil rights movement. I write about our "shared American-ness" and add "Obama's campaign grows out of the insight that we're stuck with each other and might as well try to make the most of it."

Who is this person who's taken over my body and commandeered my phone to send that e-mail? And why am I so much happier being him than I was being a Bush Liberal, a with-us-or-against-us liberal?

This is not unique to me. Not by a long shot. Many more people are looking toward the future than the past. That's no easy thing. Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Obama's "rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking." Yes, the Bush car wreck is spectacular. Dazzling in its carnage. Magnetic to our eyes. We're looking. Not staring. Looking. Because we're looking beyond it, too. Far beyond. As Noonan added, "(Obama's) victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief."

This is what this moment offers. Conservatives -- true conservatives, who've watched Bush sully conservatism's name badly -- need to decide whether they want to help make this "fresh start" happen.

Sarah Palin should decide this for you. If you look at Sarah Palin and see a cure for Bush's non-conservative spending binge, non-conservative war of choice in Iraq, non-conservative dreams of sprinkling magic democracy dust all around the world, there's only one choice for you Tuesday. If you look at Sarah Palin and see the best possible future of your party, there's only one choice on Tuesday: Vote for McCain.

But if you see the future in Romney or Fiorina or Jindal or Whitman or Pawlenty or Petraeus or Condi Rice, you've got some serious thinking to do. Because this ticket is not your party's varsity squad. This is your JV. Palin is pure JV. McCain, whatever he once was, proved with his reckless, unvetted pick of Palin that he, too, is JV.

This is not a JV moment in American history. A JV administration will make things worse. Surely, you know deep down -- both in your brain and in your gut -- that this is true. We'll be right back here in four years with an angrier electorate even more desperate for change than it is today.

Conservatives wouldn't get to handpick the Democratic change agent who finally sweeps the JV team from the White House. Maybe that change agent would be Obama again. More likely, it would be someone who convinces Americans that Obama and all his pretty talk of hope and bipartisanship amounted to a naive recipe for defeat. Me, I'm betting the 2012 change agent would be a Bush Liberal.

So you can have your bipartisan, collaborative, team-of-rivals administration now. Or you can watch a with-us-or-against-us, winner-take-all, it's-payback-time president take the oath of office in 2013.

If it sounds like I'm trying to scare you, I am. But I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't believe it. It scares me, too.

We don't need a Bush Liberal in the White House any more than we need a third Bush term. We don't need payback. We don't need big pendulum swings in our politics. On issue after issue, we need to return to the sane center of American politics. We need durable progress, the progress that comes from building a broad coalition for change. Obama offers the best chance for durable progress in many years -- probably the best chance in my lifetime.

Obama has promised to give Americans the tools for unprecedented civic involvement. Real conservatives need to decide how much faith they have in the power of their own ideas. They need to decide whether unprecedented civic engagement sounds scary or whether it sounds like an unprecedented chance to win lifelong converts and forge a fresh, new conservative majority.

At base, conservatives need to decide how invested they are in America and in conservatism. You need to decide whether -- ideologically speaking -- you're building a business you can pass on to your kids and grandkids or whether you're a huckster out to make a quick, fly-by-night buck.

If you're a fly-by-night huckster, your choice is clear: McCain-Palin.

I can't for the life of me figure out what the McCain-Palin mandate would be. That neither of them has a foreign-sounding name? That neither one of them "pals around with terrorists"? That neither one of them has ever been falsely rumored to be a Muslim? That neither of them (despite their non-conservative pander to buy up hundreds of billions of dollars in bad mortgages) has been smeared as a "socialist"? That Palin's extremist pastor got less news coverage than Obama's ex-pastor? This is perfect Rove-style, fly-by-night hucksterism: a meaningless temporary coalition held together with fear, bigotry, greed, and ignorance.

So we get malignantly out-of-context claims that Obama wants to bankrupt the coal industry. We get socialist bribes to voters during the same rallies that McCain and Palin smear Obama as a "socialist" who wants to be "redistributionist-in-chief." I think all this "redistribution" talk is, fundamentally, a smokescreen to keep conservatives from seeing how much they have in common with Obama's worldview. Obama spoke the seemingly toxic phrase "redistributive change" in passing back in 2001 while criticizing the 1960s civil rights movement for relying too much on an activist Supreme Court to improve the lives of African Americans. Sounds sort of conservative, doesn't it?

But it's hard to hear Obama's substance over the dim-witted din.

America deserves better. Conservatives deserve better. Conservatives deserve a presidential candidate who won't flee from deregulation when it becomes politically dicey. Conservatives deserve a presidential candidate who will stand up against the headwind of the mortgage crisis and explain that the market is doing what it does best: punishing the foolish and the careless and sending their assets down and down and down until someone prudent and sensible can purchase them and bring renewal. Conservatives deserve a presidential candidate who will argue that a $700 billion bailout is about the only thing that can keep financiers from learning the ruthless lesson the market is teaching. Instead, conservatives have McCain. Which is to say that conservatives have nobody.

The conservative thinker Andrew Sullivan wrote this today in a long, moving piece summarizing his endorsement of Obama:

"His fiscal policies are too liberal for me - I don't believe in raising taxes, I believe in cutting entitlements for the middle classes as the way to fiscal balance. I don't believe in 'progressive taxation', I support a flat tax. I don't want to give unions any more power. I'm sure there will be moments when a Democratic Congress will make me wince. But I also understand that money has to come from somewhere, and it will not come in any meaningful measure from freezing pork or the other transparent gimmicks advertized in advance by McCain. McCain is not serious on spending. But he is deadly serious in not touching taxes. So, on the core question of debt, on bringing America back to fiscal reason, Obama is still better than McCain."

Sullivan has also posted his top 10 reasons why conservatives should vote for Obama. Click here to consider them.

If you want to experience a sharp contrast between huckster conservatism and the sort of conservatism you can bequeath to your grandchildren, read William Kristol's empty-headed, disingenuous column in today's New York Times and then read this Sullivan piece.

Reclaim your movement. Start fresh. Collaborate with an Obama presidency when its proposals are sound. Raise hell when the proposals aren't prudent. Make America think. Trust in your ideas. If Obama succeeds in moving us past longstanding impasses, be there to recruit women whose votes are freed from a one-dimensional defense of abortion rights, gays who are freed from worrying they'll be barred from visiting the love of their life in the hospital, hard-working immigrants freed from being used as a perennial political pinata.

Build an ideological legacy you can leave to your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. But first, reject the huckster conservatism on this year's ballot. Vote for Obama. Then start fresh.

Just don't expect the Bush Liberals to thank you anytime soon. Or ever.

Leo W. Gerard: Paint McCain a Red-Baiter

2008-10-17T09:45:12Z

In a perverse way, the media painted Republicans perfectly when it selected red for their states. Reporters would never have guessed when they did it that the red party's candidate would engage in red-baiting. But there was John McCain repeatedly doing it in the debate Wednesday night, trying to convert Barack Obama into a terrifying "spread-the-wealth-around" commie. And earlier this month, the Republican's brother, Joe "McCarthy" McCain, called two Democratic-leaning Virginia counties "Communist Country."

When it comes to spreading assets around, however, the royal red Republicans, led by King "I-am-a-capitalist-really" George, take the Triple Crown. Their upside down communism works like this: the middle class pays for the tax breaks awarded the nation's rich and for the financial recklessness of Wall Street's ultra-wealthy.

In the Republican world, in the view of John McCain and George W. Bush, it never, ever works the other way. A curse, they would say, on anyone who would dare suggest that the rich should be taxed so that government could "trickle down" a portion of their extraordinary wealth to benefit the majority. They believe in "free markets," that is, allowing financial markets to run unrestrained and unregulated, or as some have put it recently -- amok. They believe government interferes in markets and therefore should be shrunken and impotent. They believe that when an elite few accumulate wealth in that system, some of it naturally will eventually "trickle down" into the empty porridge bowls of the nation's vast unworthy masses.

A dreadful thing happened on the way to the fiscal crash, though. That philosophy failed. The "small government" Bush and Republican Congress increased spending, thus replacing the budget surplus bequeathed them with deficits. And not just any deficits -- the largest known to man -- $455 billion this year, edging out the $413 billion record debt Bush set in 2004.
The rich won't be paying for that. No, Bush gave them a tax break, and McCain swears he'll make that break for the wealthy permanent. The middle class, and their children and grandchildren will be making payments on that debt -- which, by the way, was caused in part by the revenue loss from Bush's tax break for the rich. That's spreading the wealth around -- from the pockets of middle class to trust funds of the rich.

Over the past eight years, middle class Americans have watched with shock and awe as corrupt and incompetent CEOs left their failing corporations with golden parachutes -- like McCain's top financial advisor Carly Fiorina, who exited Hewlett-Packard with $45 million in 2005 when the board dismissed her as CEO following the company's stock dropping 50 percent and her furloughing 20,000 workers.

Now those same middle class Americans are incredulous that Bush -- who had McCain's support 90 percent of the time over the past eight years -- is taking $700 billion of their tax dollars to nationalize banks. Their tax dollars will be used to bail out the Wall Street financiers who wouldn't cut the middle class a break when they were late on mortgage payments, the speculators whose uninhibited risk-taking caused financial institutions to fail, lending to freeze, stocks to swoon.

Deregulation of the financial industry allowed banks and other sorts of financial institutions to merge and become "too big to fail" and engage in risky purchases without sufficient supporting capital. McCain, who until recently bragged about being "Mr. Deregulation," endorsed this suspension of rules. Its chief champion served as his campaign co-chairman - former Texas Senator Phil Gramm. Gramm successfully pressed for repeal of the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which was designed to prevent financial institutions from becoming too big to fail, and for passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that deregulated those now infamous credit default swaps that took down insurer AIG, costing taxpayers another $85 billion.

Gramm left the senate in 2002 for an executive position with the Swiss investment bank, UBS, the stock for which, by the way, has plummeted right along with that of American banks.
Gramm still advises McCain, though he's no longer campaign co-chair. He had to resign that position after he called the United States a nation of whiners during an interview in which he also denied the seriousness of the financial crisis. Here's what McCain's financial mentor said, "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession." Sure, when the coins of the middle class are flowing up into your pockets, Mr. Gramm, it doesn't feel like a recession at all. Spreading the wealth around - from the middle class to the wealthy Gramms and multi-millionaire McCains.

Really, Joe "McCarthy" McCain was right when he called the Virginia counties of Arlington and Alexandria Communist Country. John McCain owns a condo in Arlington, and that's where he located his campaign's national headquarters. They're communist all right, McCain Republican-communist, under which middle class earnings are spread to the rich.

In the debate Wednesday night, McCain accused Barack Obama of conducting class warfare because the Democrat wants to end Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy and instead cut the taxes of the middle class -- 95 percent of American families. What Obama proposes isn't warfare; it's fairness. Class warfare is what the Republicans have done to the middle class over the past eight years, and what McCain pledges to continue. It's a war the rich now are winning. That's what Obama wants to change.

Carly Fiorina Returns To Flackery After Being 'Disappeared'

2008-10-08T10:32:18Z

What do I spy with my little eye, on the teevee split screen? Why it's disgraced Hewlett-Packard CEO - slash - Golden Parachutist Carly Fiorina, making a return to McCain flackery, a position she enjoyed until it became necessary to "disappear" her, to McCain's overall detriment, as he then had to rely heavily on the P.R. exploits of imperious, long-necked Sith Lady Nancy Pfotenhauer and Plaything Of The Women Of Cable News Tucker Bounds.

But now she's back, providing Fox News with the only segment of non-Bill Ayers content of the evening, by talking up McCain's plan to help homeowners in need by coordinating a complicated bit of policy choreography between the Treasury Department, Fannie Mae, and Freddy Mac.

It's a little surprising to hear Fiorina suggesting that this complex management task is something that McCain should be in charge of, since just a few weeks ago, Fiorina was saying "I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation." I guess the deprogramming worked!

Alan Schram: Credit Crisis: What Should We Do?

2008-10-06T19:19:32Z

The credit crisis that began in 2007 and triggered the current turmoil is unique in its ferocity, especially because so many large companies are experiencing unprecedented credit and liquidity problems. This all started with steep declines in home prices that decimated the value of mortgage collateral held by many banks and financial institutions. The abstruse complexity of those asset-backed securities held as collateral made it impossible to judge the strength of balance sheets. When investors realized balance sheets are unknowable, they started selling and many were forced to sell because they could no longer borrow to hold their positions.

Now everyone is deleveraging at once, and volatility has increased dramatically. We may not see anything like this in a very long time, perhaps in our life time.

Reflecting on the dramatic developments of the last few months, we note the landscape has changed significantly. Consider: during the third quarter alone, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalized, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, insurance giant and Dow component AIG (one of the most important financial companies in the world) failed and was essentially taken over by the US government, major banks Washington Mutual and Wachovia collapsed, and Merrill Lynch was forced into the arms of a more solid bank. Investment banks no longer exist in the form they did before, as the two survivors Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley elected to become bank holding companies rather than investment banks, in exchange for deposits (this change has meaningful ramifications, among which are much smaller asset base and reduced future profitability, as well as increased regulatory oversight). And these are only the major companies. Scores of smaller financial institutions were swallowed whole by this storm, and even money market funds now need guarantees from Washington as part of a bailout package the size of the GDP of the Netherlands.

What brought us to this point? Low interest rates and easy money fueled greed and a speculative run up. That was aided and abetted by leverage and complex financial instruments that magnified leverage. Everyone is guilty of greed, not just Wall Street but also the home buyers who wanted more home than they could afford, and over-paid and over-borrowed to get it.

The confluence of those factors led banks to insolvency and everyone else to a loss of confidence. Loss of confidence leads to credit being halted. As British Prime Minister William Gladstone observed, "when panic awakes, credit sleeps". And credit is the life blood of any modern economy.

So what do we do now? Mathematician Carl Jacobi used to recommend thinking problems backwards, saying "invert, always invert". I would therefore like to focus on what we should NOT be doing:

• Do not open the spigot to infuse more liquidity. This is not a liquidity crisis but a solvency crisis precipitated by leverage. Banks are failing because they are insolvent. Large financial institutions collapsed because of irresponsible lending, shoddy risk management practices and an untenable business model that lasted for a long time but was recently exposed as disastrous. Liquidity alone will not solve this fundamental problem.

• Don't ban short selling. Price discovery is an important feature of free markets. Without short sellers the markets will not be as efficient and will not be as credible. The effort to ban short sellers is a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the real culprits. It does not go to the root of the problem but deals with the symptoms. Companies are not weak because of short sellers. Short sellers pick those companies because they are weak.

• Don't change accounting rules. Mark to model is by definition a rosy colored approach. We need to recognize our problems so that we can solve them. The proposal to suspend mark to market accounting reminds me of the 19th Century congressman from Indiana who wanted Congress to pass a law defining the value of Pi as 3.0 so kids in Indiana have an easier time memorizing it. Sweeping the trouble under the carpet will not help. It is never a good idea to ignore the truth, and reality isn't that bad that we have to hide from it.

• Don't inflate the Dollar by printing money. This is a short term fix with massive and painful long term consequences, and it does not serve the interests of the American people to have a weak currency.

The markets will do what they always do, which is find a new equilibrium point. The aggressive action by the Federal government will build confidence back up. Of course we do not know when that will happen. Headlines are likely to remain unpleasant for a while. But one of the great things about this country is that we have coping mechanisms and we deal with our problems. This storm will pass. Remember that markets typically bottom when pessimism is at new highs.

Alan Schram is the Managing Partner of Wellcap Partners, a Los Angeles based investment partnership.

Suzanne Braun Levine: Having it All

2008-10-01T18:07:15Z

Bella Abzug - the shrewd, hard-hitting, passionate and idealistic legislative genius who led the women's movement and represented New York in Congress - once remarked that we would only have true gender equality when an incompetent woman could go as far as an incompetent man. That milestone appears to have been achieved with the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President. Which is not to say that Palin couldn't become competent, but Bella, who understood and believed in government so profoundly, would be horrified at how little expertise Palin brings to the table right now. Even behind the reportedly clear glasses she wears to play down her beauty-queen credential and enhance her gravitas and even if she has been able to cram enough facts into her head to not embarrass herself during the debate, she can't disguise her inexperience. This is not an anti-woman statement; it is a pro-national leadership statement. Running the country is not a learn-as-you-go job.

It has been argued by her defenders that Palin - the Hockey Mom - can do it all and that any suggestions that she can't are sexist. Parenting is very demanding - just ask Joe Biden, who was mightily torn by the needs of his newly motherless children and his career. (In fact, Gwen Ifill might get some revealing responses to a version of that question.) We, who know what sexism is because we helped define it before we began working to defeat it, can tell you that Having It All has been one of the crucibles of the struggle for equality. When the term began to circulate in the 1970s many women felt oppressed by the supposed message that in order to be "new women" they had to have high power careers, raise multiple children - and, as Jane O'Reilly once wrote, be "multi-orgasmic til dawn." As the conversation went on, women modified that message and began to reassure each other that "you can have it all - just not all at once." Until we have reliable and universal child care and special needs options and until we offer all teenagers advice besides the "abstinence only" approach Palin subscribes to, a mother in her circumstances would have a hard enough time getting to work every day, let alone being a heartbeat away from leading a family of nations she has never even traveled through.

Speaking of the free world - and that red phone that can ring at three in the morning: If the argument is that should she have to answer, she will have serious advisers to turn to, that seems to me a highly sexist assumption: she won't bother her pretty little head about world crises and will do as she is told. It might be worse, though, if she didn't defer to cooler heads. "The difference between a pit bull and a mom," she has said, "is lipstick." Does being pugnacious and defensive - and an enthusiastic hunter by helicopter - prepare one for the judgment calls and diplomatic subtleties required of the defender of the free world?

McCain knows enough about government to know that it takes more than adrenaline - or testosterone for that matter - to respond to threats of war. He obviously chose Palin primarily because she is a woman. Again, this is not an anti-Palin observation; it is an anti-sexist point. It is cynical to nominate someone just because she is a woman on the assumption that because she is a woman other women will vote for her. Even women who do not share any of her beliefs. That is just an updated version of the argument against women's suffrage that there was no point in granting women the vote because they would just cast their ballot the way their husbands told them to.

How, I wonder, can women executives like Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, who put in the time, who worked through countless professional and personal challenges, who learned how the world works and succeeded because they were considered really good at what they did - how can women who know what building a career in a still-sexist world is like - say she is ready? Only if they have so internalized the sexism they claim has been defeated that they think little of their own accomplishments and even less of the kind of leadership women have to offer.

McCain Repeating Keating Era Mistakes, Regulator Warns

2008-10-01T01:00:42Z

As the stock market recovers from its biggest single-day drop since the crash of 1987, a former federal regulator who had a front-row view of John McCain's role in the Savings and Loan scandal says he is repeating some of the same mistakes.

William Black -- a deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation during the "Keating Five" scandal that nearly ended McCain's political career -- says the Arizona Republican's chief errors at the time were underestimating the importance of regulation and relying too heavily on slanted advice from captains of industry.

"In the S&L crisis, he took his advice from the worst [kind of] criminal. Charles Keating is the person he went to for his policy advice," Black said. "Now, he certainly is getting advice from Phil Gramm, Carly Fiorina, Rick Davis -- the whole group of economic and top political advisers are lobbyist types. He just doesn't seem to get it, ever, that the advice is going to favor their clients. Even if they just stop being lobbyists, you can't just turn that off instantly. It's their mind state that develops. ... The biggest lesson is that, when you deregulate and de-supervise, you create an environment where control fraud emerges. You hyper-inflate bubbles; you get criminalization."

Though McCain's latest TV ads tout the senator's sporadic calls for more government regulation, Black notes with interest that McCain bragged recently that he was "fundamentally a deregulator." Black, who is now an associate professor of law and economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, also said that the deregulation that McCain was until recently proud to have championed effectively took corporate cops off the beat. "Nobody calls the Houston police department and says 'I think there a problem at Enron,'" he remarked.

Black, who has long been critical of McCain's role in the Keating affair, also viewed McCain's Tuesday announcement of his support for increased FDIC insurance rates as something of a sham, calling it "just one of his many contradictions" on economic matters.

In 1991, McCain railed against raising the FDIC insurance limit from $40,000 to its current $100,000 level. "The perversity of Federal deposit insurance is exemplified by the taxpayer bailout of the savings and loan industry," McCain said, while omitting his own role in the scandal that actually precipitated the S&L crisis.

"I think it is generally acknowledged that the failure of the savings and loan industry, to a large degree, can be directly attributed to the unwarranted expansion of deposit insurance," McCain continued. "Basic coverage was increased from $40,000 to $100,000. No longer was deposit insurance for the small depositor. It became the safety blanket for large, sophisticated depositors and freewheeling bankers."

Now, as McCain echoes Barack Obama's call to raise the FDIC insurance level from $100,000 to $250,000, Black believes the idea that FDIC insurance rates ever caused the S&L crisis can finally be put to rest as being "complete bunk."

Yet, despite being a withering McCain critic, Black isn't completely sold on Obama, either. While he notes with some satisfaction that the Illinois Democrat "did at least try to do some stuff on the regulation of subprime [mortgages] a couple of years ago, he wasn't on key committees." Overall, on financial regulatory matters, Black says Obama is "really somewhat untested. I'm not sure exactly what he would do." But Black notes that the "experienced" candidate is the one most likely to be tagged with responsibility for the current mess. "McCain purports to be on the committee that dealt with everything. [Meanwhile], he did nothing on subprime mortgages for years."

Andy Ostroy: Wall Street Crisis Gives Preview of McCain Under Pressure

2008-09-24T15:24:47Z

Last week was not a good week for Sen. John McCain. It began on Monday, amid a 500+ point stock market drop and news of Lehman Brothers' and Merrill Lynch's bankruptcies, when the curmudgeonly 72-year-old Republican presidential nominee incredibly declared that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." "

Exactly one week later, on NBC's "Today" show, McCain said, "We are in the most serious crisis since World War II."

What happened in-between was the McCain camp's realization that, in a time of great national crisis, their candidate demonstrated a glaring and embarrassing lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation, and an inexcusable disconnect with the financial pain and suffering of Mr. and Mrs. Average American (an interesting side note is the Newsweek report issued Monday that the McCains own a total of 13 cars--two of which are foreign--while "the elitist" Sen. Barack Obama owns just one...a Ford hybrid).

The meltdown on Wall Street last week was not the only one. We got a glimpse of "President McCain" under fire, and man, it wasn't pretty. What came into question was McCain's temperament, judgement and resolve, and what effect he could or would have on the American people in times of crisis. In his first real test, he failed miserably. In various press conferences and campaign speeches, he came off testy, agitated and confused. He was quick to point fingers and assign blame, first calling for the baseless firing of SEC Chairman Chris Cox, and then in another angry, befuddled moment saying the head of the "FEC" (Federal Election Commission) should be canned. Hey Gramps, why stop there? Let's also dump the head of the EEC (European Economic Community), the CEC (Council for Exceptional Children) and the OEC (Oregon Environmental Council). I hate to say it, but are we starting to see what it means to be a 72-year-old politician in the line of fire? Is this a scary foreshadowing of things to come should McCain win in November and become the oldest president in U.S. history? I'm sorry, but I want my president lucid.

The last thing a U.S. president should do when tragedy or crisis strikes is to play the blame game. It does nothing to solve the problem, it heightens the tension and fans the flames, fails to reassure and calm a worried public, and is anything but presidential. And that's exactly what we got from "President McCain."

Additionally, there was the endless barrage of lies and deception coming from the GOP hopeful. His repeated attempts to attribute Wall Street's mess to Obama was counter-productive and disingenuous. Mind you, this is the same Obama who's been accused by McCain of being unfit for office because he's got little Washington experience, yet who's apparently been around D.C. long enough to be responsible for single-handedly causing the financial crisis.

Poor McCain. When he's not putting his own foot in his mouth he's forced to ingest the smelly appendages of others...like his former disgraced economic surrogates Phil Gramm and Carly Fiorina. Gramm came under fire months ago for accusing Americans of "whining" about the "mental recession" they've been imagining in their overreacting heads. Then last week Fiorina, the former embattled Hewlett-Packard CEO, informed the media that her boss wasn't qualified to run a major U.S. corporation like HP. His choice of teammates certainly doesn't demonstrate the kind of sound judgment we'd expect from someone who could be assembling a presidential cabinet in just a few short months.

McCain's words and actions last week were those of a panicked, desperate warrior who's recklessly spraying his last rounds of ammo in every direction hoping he'll take out a bunch of enemy fighters and somehow find himself the victor. It was, and continues to be, painful to watch. His body tenses stiffly, his neck drops into his shoulders like a turtle, he snarls and completely loses his humor. He becomes the temperamental John McCain that, to many, is legendary in Washington, even among his Republican peers.

John McCain is an angry man, and we got to see that last week. It was also evident the prior week during what was his toughest interview to-date, which came from the fiery ladies of ABC's The View. The tag-team of Barbara Walters and Joy Behar had the crusty candidate on the ropes several times, and he appeared literally seconds away from snapping.

Now in this same week, Obama appeared very presidential. He was a calming, assuring presence in a sea of economic madness. He was poised, confident and never lost his cool. And while McCain's been getting his advice from controversial buffoons like Gramm and Fiorina, Obama's surrounded himself with highly-respected financial gurus like former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. He's a brilliant strategist who thinks the issues through and has an appreciation for the details and nuances of each.

To be sure, America needs a president who provides leadership, inspiration and a steady hand under pressure. America does not need another cocky, arrogant, petulant, impulsive, derisive, insecure, shoot-first-ask-questions-later president with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.

The Real News: McCain's Straight Mess Express

2008-09-23T12:17:22Z

September 22 - From his lobbyists, to the economy and foreign policy, McCain's Straight Talk Express is off the rails. The Real News Network's Pepe Escobar examines the contradictions and inconsistencies within the McCain campaign.

McCain recently announced that "the crisis on Wall Street started in the washing culture of lobbying and influence peddling," which is an interesting statement for a candidate whose list of advisers hosts a range of paid lobbyists. The names on the line-up include Wayne Berman, a lobbyist for Chevron and Haas Oil, Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard (who has admitted that she doesn't believe McCain could run a company), and Randy Scheunemann, a paid lobbyist for the country of Georgia.

The shaky foundations of the McCain platform continue to quiver as McCain appears to be flip-flopping from one position to the next on a variety of issues. Be it his response to last week's catastrophic economic meltdown, or his stance on meeting with other world leaders such as the President of Spain. In addition, his basic knowledge of current issues may be called into question when he makes such rudimentary mistakes as calling for the resignation of the President of the FEC, when he was actually attempting to state that the President of the SEC should resign.

In early April, McCain voiced that he "would like (Zapatero) to visit the US". However, his foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, has emphasized in the past that McCain would not be engaging in any meetings with the Spanish leader. The debatable competency of his international knowledge was revealed in a recent interview with a Miami radio station. When McCain was asked if he would agree to meet with Spain's President, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, he responded with a discombobulated answer about his stance on working with Latin American leaders.

The Real News journalist, Pepe Escobar, coins the phrase the "McCain mess express" in his commentary on the Republican Candidate, to illustrate the contentious position of the campaign. He examines how McCain's plaguing hindrances, such as contradictory statements and lacking knowledge, may be taking this campaign on the wild ride of a runaway freight train.

Watch more stories from The Real News Network.

Tina Fey Mocks Charge That Palin Skit Was Sexist

2008-09-22T21:40:39Z

I would never be so presumptuous as to put words in the mouth of Tina Fey - after all, the words that come out win clutches of Emmys! But if this isn't specifically a response to McCain flack Carly Fiorina, and her glitteringly inane contention that Fey's imitation of Sarah Palin was "sexist"...well, let's just say that I prefer to think that it is. And that's enough.

[WATCH.]

BILLY BUSH: The McCain campaign...I guess they thought it sexist? They responded...kind of the whole thing was...

TINA FEY: I saw one lady trying to form a thought that it was sexist on the news, but she didn't really get it together. Probably because she was a lady and she was dumb. [pause] Wait. Is that sexist?

McCain Defends Fiorina's Golden Parachute

2008-09-22T11:30:58Z

This weekend, John McCain defended unhelpful surrogate Carly Fiorina's generous severance package from Hewlett Packard:

"I think she did a good job as CEO in many respects," McCain told "The Today Show's" Meredith Vieira when she pressed him on the matter in light of McCain's recent accusations of greed on Wall Street.

"I know that she was a very successful businesswoman. Started out as a part-time secretary and made her way to the top of the corporate ladder as one of the biggest CEOs in the United States of America," McCain said after noting that he was unaware of the specifics of her compensation package.

Fiorina received $21 million in severance pay when she was fired as CEO of Hewlett Packard in 2005. She received an additional $21 million when Hewlett Packard's board bought out her company stock options and pension benefits. Her compensation package sparked a lawsuit from shareholders.

McCain admitted, however, that he was not familiar with the details of Fiorina's payout:

McCAIN: I don't think so. ... Because I think she did a good job as CEO in many respects. I don't know the details of her compensation package. But she's one of many advisers that I have.

Q: But she did get a $45 million dollar golden parachute after being fired while 20,000 of her employees were laid off.

McCAIN: I have many of the people, but I do not know the details of what happened.

McCain has vowed to end "multimillion dollar payouts to CEO's who have broken the public trust."

Watch:

Fiorina Abruptly Cancels GOP Rally Appearance

2008-09-21T11:49:33Z

Earlier this week, after McCain economic adviser Carly Fiorina bluntly declared that neither Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) nor Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin were capable of running a major corporation, McCain campaign officials told CNN that Fiorina would "disappear" because McCain was "furious" at her comments. Though the official said "disappear" meant that she "would be off TV for a while," Fiorina's appearance at a Republican rally in Florida was abruptly canceled on Friday.