Blessed are the Knowing

Ahhh, Wisdom Blogger Widgets -

"You are the Sun
I am the moon,
You are the means
I am the tune...
Play Me."

At last, I am learning how this Blog thing works!

Maybe someday, somebody will actually read it... ha, ha, ha,

Kristol again offers nothing new

Kristol,

Stating the bleeding obvious does not a column make, but I guess it is too much to be hoped for your column to offer anything 'new'.

Yes, 'a new' paradigm is needed. Yes, Obama must think 'anew'. Yes, those who wish to help must think 'anew' too. Too bad it seems so hard for you. More substance if you will... please.

Hillary Clinton? More than an American Choice.

Mr. Friedman,

Haunted by ambivalence since the 'Clinton for State' story broke, I could not place my ruddy nicotine stained finger on the reason for my angst until, blessedly, your column set my simple-mind's eye straight. It captured my feelings perfectly.

Drawing a clear distinction between the inane drama the petty are peddling re: 'Clinton for State' and the true import of what must be taken into account by Mr. Obama as he makes this decision was spot on. Of course, many may wonder why a beer-swilling Canuck such as myself should concern himself with who the president-elect appoints as his US Secretary of State? The answer is simple, their exists a collective 'we', a 'we' consisting of the other western democracies, who recognize that an incoming US administration's choice for who becomes the public face of American policy on the world's stage can make or break our shared economic and democratic ideals. As such, the last thing we wish to see is any appointment that diminishes the honest brokering required to both address and protect our collective concerns.

As you point out, as long as Obama has Hillary's back, in exchange for her pledge to adopt a stance akin to filial respect for his foreign agenda, then all should be well. Given the choice, if I were Obama I would take a chance on Hillary. By all appearances Mrs. Clinton is a serious and professional politician. Her chance to marry her gifts to an Obama presidency should not be sold short. And any discussion of Bill's role is extraneous - he is, and shall remain, a lightening rod - but a lightening rod who recognizes its place is not always a bad thing.

Cheers,

Brooks and the whittling away of the middle-class.

Brooks,

The "former" class of which you speak is indeed facing an economic reality that could lead to its extinction. Of course, in a country that continues to see the gap widen between its richest and poorest members how could it be otherwise?

Any 'democracy' where 10% of the population controls 70%+ of the national wealth (with the top 1% controlling 40%) while its poorest 40% control less than 1% of the national wealth is doomed to see its center, its core, its middle, succumb to a fate that is less than kind.

As long as the rules that allow for this perverse concentration of wealth remain unchecked then 'staying-middle-class' will continue its downward trend. With the "American Dream" becoming too rich for most. A mirage.

Those seeking to preserve the currently flawed stock-market and offshore trading system under the guise that capital investment in innovation must be protected at all costs have no interest in altering the status-quo to help the middle-class. Their only interest is in preserving the elite's privileged position. Nothing will change until new oversight mechanisms are introduced that will prod American investors to look first to the needs of the domestic economy rather than allow them to move their profits offshore.

Obama need not walk alone

Dear WaPa,

While it's true the West faces a "delicate" task in balancing the sharing of "more wealth and power with non-Western countries" as it tries to fix the present economic cluster-fook - - your assertion that Obama need provide the public face as well as shoulder the entire reform argument needed to meet the "terms consistent with U.S. interests and values" is flawed. There is one notable omission in your analysis - the role of the American capitalist.

Unless America's economic elite is willing to recognize how its unfailing pursuit of short-term quarterly profits compromises the long-term preservation of the global free-market economy no lasting solution will be possible. Political directed action alone cannot solve this crisis. D.C. centered initiatives are doomed to fail unless those who control the levers of credit reconcile their lending practices with the unsustainable simple-minded investors Pavlovian impulse to seek out the quickest buck. Unless US credit-markets undertake to support new businesses (new neo-capitalists) who have business plans based on lower short-term returns but married to realistic innovations promising to capture tomorrow's 'just-in-time' technologies - the US economy is doomed.

Until the US investor, US businessman, US broker and banker collectively recognize America is on the cusp of an structural abyss that not only threatens the world's free-market economy but US security as well - - and as long as they refuse to reconsider their modus-operandi and lower their collective expectations, then bail-out initiatives will merely serve to placate, rather than solve, the market's systemic flaws.

Much like the "plague", if left untreated , market uncertainty will continue to re-visit US capitalism again and again until one day, like the Missouri Mandan, it will find itself succumbing to an unforgiving pathogen capable of gutting an entire economic culture. Like the long gone Dodo bird, American capitalism risks toying with extinction unless it adapts and proselytizes about its new found patience for backing sustainable development.

Should America's business culture fail to redefine its ideological ethos and question the world's taste for quick profit, then all democratically run markets are apt to fall victim to domestically driven retrenchment strategies. To be clear, the president-elect is not the only character in this drama who must act . It is incumbent on those who peddle, seek, or hoard capital to now rethink their socio-economic roles. If they do not, then any palliative legislative solution introduced by Mr. Obama is fated to fail. Until US capitalists can put aside their individual short-term agenda's and act "collectively" (yes, a la Marx) to restore the world's confidence in the capacity of the US to adapt and innovate in face of profit challenges then capitalism as we know it is, quite obviously, doomed.

President-Elect Obama need not face this crisis alone. Ultimately those who bear the greatest burden for rescuing American capitalism are, ironically[?], America's Capitalist's.

Rich proves columns need not be poor.

Mr. Rich,

Well said. Amid all the daily pundit-dung and dry drivel that tries to pass itself off as legitimate commentary, your columns consistently demonstrates that all is not lost. Your work proves it's possible for those writers willing to put work into the reflective (rather than reactive) phase of political writing can produce reasoned assessments of the partisan landscape that not only engage the reader, but inform the debate. A rare gift - too bad so many of your contemporaries have not set their sights higher to emulate your model.

If the GOP is serious about resurrecting its bankrupt ideological message it should launch a search to find your conservative Doppleganger to articulate its case. Of course, that assumed the GOP right-wing and its moderates can actually unite and come up with something worth articulating?

In the meantime, keep up the campaign calling for the genesis of a cogent and viable opposition to oppose Obama's policies. Not only is an opposition necessary - but were it to both robust and credible - it could only help shape his priorities in ways that could only benefit his presidency.

Religion may have its place, but it must be a private place.

The sacred beliefs of the few, or even the many, do not have a preordained right to public platforms.

Keeping government controlled secular space free of religious messages or any other form of belief specific iconography is the cornerstone of the separation of Church and State. This principle must protected - just as the free speech rights of religious groups must be protected when they seek to hold their gatherings under the roofs of their 'private' houses of worship. For any religious group to aver differently is, well, simply un-American.

Kristol & the GOP: Barking up the wrong tree... again

Kristol,

Your column is going to the dogs.

With nary a mention of the real issues facing the GOP, you again cling to the spurious notion that the US is "still a center right country" by saying the election results weren't really as bad as they could have been? Your tea-leaf reading of the voters reported ideological self-identification is not just weak - its absurd. A loss is a loss, and the GOP's demonstrable failure to broaden its base beyond its mostly white, mostly reactionary, old style republicanism is the real issue. Too bad the best advice you could offer your like-minded brethren was that "it wouldn’t hurt" for the "possible 2012 G.O.P. nominees to begin bringing some puppies home for their kids" to broaden their electoral popular appeal? Absurd.

There is only one thing left to say re: your banal analysis.

WOOF!

George Will's take on Obama's voice

Georgie Boy,

Let us get a few things straight. Yes, G.W. Bush's term was, as you point out, defined by war. However, stating that Lincoln's presidency was the last to be so defined is simply wrong - have you forgotten about LBJ? You remember that era don't you? Surely you haven't forgotten - It was about the time you got your draft deferment?

re: your assertion today's economic conditions "have put a polar frost" on the "ambitions" of the recently elected "liberals". Is today's paradox any different than 1932? Yes, in one respect, armed with a history of how and why the reach of FDR's New Deal exceeded its grasp, left-leaning democrats can be expected to temper their irrational impulses and dreams under the tutelage of president-elect Obama's leadership. How could it be otherwise?

Rather than viewing his upcoming challenge as an "affliction" - you should see it for what it is: opportunity borne of crisis. Which leads to a final point; yes, you are right, Obama will find his presidential voice - but if he is to exemplify 'real change' one hardly expects you will like the tune he hums. And that, is how it should be.

McCain Undone by Selfish Tongue

Re; Dowd's "Who's the Question Mark?"

The tragedy of American politics is that, too often, men of integrity sell their souls. McCain's desperate last acts speak volumes. Rarely does human drama of such Shakespearean portions play itself out on such a grand scale. Pity the old prince at the center of the tragedy opted to forgo his dignity in his lust for the keys to the Castle.

As the curtain draws, all he he has left America with is a taste of vile partisanship - based on the unfounded fear of the 'other'. Alas, if politics reveals the measure of a man - McCain may well find himself on Nov. 5th in front of the the mirror realizing he is but a shell of his past promise, muttering all the while "Done to death by slanderous tongue".

Of course, the tongue of which he speaks will have been his own.
Was the Hero that here lies"O happy dagger!
This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die."