A Sickening Sense of Entitlement

The former CEO of Merrill Lynch spends $1.22 million of the corporation's money on decorating his office, then on his way out dishes out $3 to $4 billion of federal bailout money in bonuses to upper management--despite the fact they had led the firm to a $15 billion dollar loss and absorption by Bank of America. AIG gets $85 billion in bailout money and sends the bigwigs to a swanky California seaside resort a week later at a cost of $440,000 for the weekend. The crash of Citigroup would probably implode the stock market. It gets $45 billion of federal rescue money. The next thing you know, they are signing up for a $50 million corporate jet.

What is wrong with these people? It would never even occur to me to ask my employer to shell out money to decorate my office, particularly in dire times for the bottom line. In ten years I have asked for one paint job and to replace a ceiling tile discolored by a leak in the roof. I hesitate to use too many of the district's pens and markers. How about you? Don't you try to watch the company's pennies too? Why are these clowns so different? Simple. It's because they are not like you and me. Their lives may as well have been lived in a parallel universe compared to ours.

Most of the top management at firms like Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, Morgan Stanley Chase and so forth come from a tiny sliver of society whose lives are as far out of the norm as the Tsar's was to his serfs. These are the children of millionaires and billionaires. They went to private boarding schools and got into Ivy League business schools as legacies. I know plenty of scholarship students who saw their type at prestigious schools. They had $1,000 a week clothing allowances, scarcely went to class and somehow muddled through with a minimum of effort. They stepped into mid-upper management right out of school based on the extensive social and business network of their fellow aristocrats. They were immediately admitted to the most exclusive clubs and associations in the Big Apple and other major financial centers.

These people have no clue what it is like to actually have to work hard, save money, land a job or keep one based on their merits. John Thain left Goldman Sachs with $300 million in stock. Merrill hired him at $83 million a year. He couldn't afford to spruce up his own office? It likely never crossed his mind. Everything is an entitlement to people like him. In one of life's supreme ironies, the wealthiest are the class most apt to get practically everything in life gratis. Connections, many decades of gaming the system to cater to their whims and address their every interest, and a casually sickening sense of entitlement make it all so common and all so easy. Warren Buffett, a self-made billionaire, is one who recognizes the incongruity for what it is, complaining of the injustice of his paying a lower tax rate than his secretary.

The current administration appears to be getting a little fed up with this state of affairs. Vice President Biden said he wanted to throw such people "in the brig." President Obama called such a lack of responsibility "shameful." It might just be that some much tighter regulations will be attached to the second half of the TARP bailout money, the half under Obama's control. There is talk of salary limits, requirements for using the money and paying it back, and so forth. The word is that much of it will go this time to help mortgage payers rather than profligate and ungrateful financial houses, anyway.

It all just goes to show that these scions of the domestic noble class cannot be trusted to take care of the national or even their own corporate interest without the most stringent regulation. This is the real "good ole boy" network writ large. They have led lives of incredible privilege, having everything handed to them. In their experience, the rest of the human race exists to provide for their every whim. They are, in short, spoiled brats. Giving them free reign has wrecked property values, retirement prospects, and the housing, stock and job markets for untold millions. Enough. Either we take control of them or they will have control of us. If it is handled right, the economic crisis caused by their overreach may prove a blessing if it shocks the public out of compliant accession to their steady accretion of power and gives Obama the political wherewithal to act.

What About Bipartisanship?

There is much talk about President Obama's bipartisanship initiative and the House Republicans turning it down flat by voting unanimously against his stimulus package yesterday. Some excoriate the Republicans for ingratitude. Some say Obama is naively wasting his time and now he will have to turn to hardball tactics to muscle his agenda items through. Many believe full scale partisan battle is right around the corner, that it will be a return to business as usual in Washington before long. None of these are entirely on the mark.

People need to take a realistic view of developments. I foresee Obama continuing to be solicitous of Republican sensibilities. They have given him high marks for meeting with their House and Senate memberships and offering an ear and respect. The House Republicans are not so complimentary of the House Democratic leadership, whom they feel ignored them and failed to solicit any input from them.

The fact is that political parties exist for a reason. Republicans and Democrats fundamentally disagree about the roles government should play in society. Even if the president is being nice to them, Republicans are no more under obligation to support his $825 billion economic package than Democrats would have been to support President Bush's cutting the SCHIP Children's Health program had he said a few kind words about Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

Make no mistake, on some matters positive relations will allow more compromises to be reached. Obama will keep working at it and will prod congressional Democrats to do likewise. But on many issues the fundamental beliefs of the two parties are simply too far apart. This is even more the case now, with Democrats enjoying an 80-vote lead in the House. Most of the competitive districts are now held by Democrats. Practically the only Republicans left are from rock-solid conservative districts. They have more to fear from primary challengers on their right if they stray from conservative orthodoxy than they do from losing to Democrats by not being liberal enough.

Will Obama have to abandon his charm offensive with the other party and turn mean to them? It's hard to see why. He has an 80-vote advantage in the House. Even if all the Republicans stick together and some Democrats defect, as happened this week, he can carry his policies easily there. The vote this week was 244-188 with the Republicans unanimous in opposition and 11 Democrats joining them. What does he have to gain by a war of sound bites with them? He advocates his views firmly, but takes the high ground of respect and civility with his "Republican colleagues," as he calls them. If they respond viciously they are the ones diminished in the eyes of moderate voters. They can throw all the red meat they want to their base. That does nothing but paint them into the corner McCain-Palin couldn't fight their way out of.

In the Senate deliberations to come, the Democrats' advantage is almost as strong. They currently lead 58 to 41, and this will probably increase to 59-41 once Minnesota is resolved in the courts and Al Franken likely takes the seat from Norm Coleman. That means even with Senate rules the Republicans probably cannot stop much of Obama's agenda. There are ten Republican Senators in vulnerable positions, holding seats in states where Obama won the presidential vote. This includes two in liberal Maine, one in such places as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Florida, and one in Iowa where Obama is extremely popular. Unlike House members from conservative districts, Senators have to represent an entire state. When that state already supports the president they stridently oppose his initiatives at their peril.

Even if Senate Republican leader McConnell leads filibusters, the White House will need to find only one, or perhaps two defectors from pro-Obama states to move its bills through. The public mood is in favor of action, Obama and the Democrats hold the cards, and they can get what they want without need for recourse to undue mudslinging.

The Republicans are crippled because their policies and theories have not worked. Their greatest strength has always been their commitment to their views. Of course, their greatest weakness is that same commitment which engenders their famous inability to understand or admit that their policies are not working and to develop new ones. Obama can continue to smile and charm, to introduce transformative legislation and to answer the public's wishes by treating the opposing party with unruffled collegiality. The American people, by giving him solid majorities in both houses, have ensured he will win his votes either way.

The Republicans in congress can either go along with him and be "me too" Republicans, or they can oppose him and be partisan obstructionists against what the majority wants. If they do the former they risk being made superfluous; if they do the latter they risk looking out of touch. For the time being the House Republicans seem to have chosen to assert their independence. If they stay with that strategy they are betting that Obama's policies will fail and they can pick up the pieces. If he succeeds, however, they might be looking at a generation of Democratic dominance. They might eventually feel forced to cede some ground. At any rate, in the next two weeks we will likely see some Republican movement in the Senate.

Al Arabiya Interview

President Obama today set quite a precedent by granting the first exclusive television interview of his presidency to the Arabic-language satellite news network Al Arabiya. The session underscores the importance he ascribes to dealing with the combustible Middle East and represents a bold personal attempt to change the dynamic of America's relations with the region. You can read a summary and the entire transcript of Obama's interview with Hisham Mehlem here.

Obama's timing and message are meant to convey a new American face to a Muslim audience, a face etched with respect and goodwill. Obama made this clear by directly stating, "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy." He made sure to speak of his Muslim father and middle name and his history of living in Muslim countries, including the largest (Indonesia).

He and Mehlem agreed that al Qaeda, by levelling political attacks against Obama even before he took office, showed they were "nervous" about him. When asked why, Obama responded by saying, "What that tells me is their ideas are bankrupt." He said they have never improved life for Muslim people anywhere, mentioning such things as "education and health care," and pointed out one of the messages of his Inaugural Address, "you will be judged on what you have built, not what you've destroyed. And what they have been doing is destroying things. And over time I think the Muslim world has recognized that that path is leading nowhere, except more death and destruction."

His specific peace idea: negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to produce a two-state solution, is certainly nothing new. What he hopes is new is his ability to be seen as an honest broker the Arab side can trust. He said, "America was not born as an imperial power, and the same relationship of respect that we had as recently as twenty years ago, we want to reconstruct that."

There is no doubt Obama is seen more positively by Muslims than George W. Bush was. There is an identity factor there, and the absence of his predecessor's insensitivity (referring to a "Crusade") and belligerent swagger, combined with actions such as the prospective drawdown from Iraq, closing Guantanamo and pledging to follow humanitarian principles and international law should open some doors. Al Qaeda and similar extremists must indeed be concerned about Obama's enhanced credibility in their backyard and his potential for turning people away from recourse to their brand of fanaticism.

In the volatile Middle East, though, that is no guarantee that problems will be resolved. It could conceivably even rebound to strong resentment against Obama in the region if progress does not come as fast as some may hope. Still, given the ham-handed and ineffective course the U.S. has followed in recent years, the chances will improve. In the confounding Middle East, that is often the best one can do. The possibility of progress will have a chance to glimmer again, if "inshallah," the time is right.

Proffered Deal Delays AG Confirmation

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) is on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee, at the behest of Republicans, has kept putting off a vote on the confirmation of Obama Attorney General nominee Eric Holder. Whitehouse has now lost patience with the holdup and has released a statement revealing, to his understanding, what is behind this. He feels the Republicans are quite afraid Holder may wind up prosecuting people for breaking U.S. and international law by torturing people, and they do not want any investigations into such activities to take place.

On January 23 Whitehouse released the following statement. You can see the original on his website here.

"Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have asked Eric Holder to make a commitment, before he is even confirmed, that he will not prosecute any Bush Administration officials for their involvement in acts of torture during the last administration.

Anyone familiar with the criminal justice system - especially those with experience as prosecutors or judges - should know that a prosecutor should make no determination about who to prosecute before he or she has all the facts, and particularly in response to legislative pressure.

After all we have recently been through at the Department of Justice, I would hope and expect that upon calm reflection, no one on our Committee would expect the Attorney General of the United States to make prosecutorial decisions based on legislative pressure."

Or make deals promising that certain criminals will have nothing to fear as long as he is on the job. Hopefully, Mr. Holder will have the integrity to refuse to make any such deal. Some of the members of this committee seem not only to have missed the memo that they lost the election, they also seem to remain clueless as to some of the reasons why they lost.

Oh, Woe!

It's struck! The dreaded midlife metabolic slowdown has finally tapped me on the shoulder with its meaty hand. I managed to elude it until past 50, but no more.

When we moved to Visalia almost ten years ago I was 44 and could eat pretty much as much as I wanted. Ice cream three times a week was not unusual. I walked the golf course pretty much every week; that was my primary exercise. My weight had not varied much in many years.

All of a sudden I got on the scale about six months ago and had put on 15 pounds. I've not been golfing much for a few years now, but I've been running three times a week and lift weights three others. I could feel the paunch around my belly button and old pants didn't fit.

So it's been watch the diet very carefully since. It was a help to have our daughter Jeanette visit over Christmas for nearly a week. She's now a vegan and gave us some pointers. She also prepared some recipes that were pretty good.

So it's a lot more fruit, salad and exercise, a lot less starch, meat and dairy these days. Dessert? What's that? Still, the pounds are stubbornly hanging on and refusing to budge.

Whose idea was this wretched turn of events? I don't recall signing up for this! What do you mean meat loaf isn't on the list? There's got to be somebody to lodge a protest with about this. Hello? Hello?

Obama's Aid to States

One of the most important items in President Obama's stimulus package is his contemplated aid to states. This is an important component of heading off the "downward spiral" a strong recessionary economy sets in motion.

The spiral works like this. States have to balance their budgets. They cannot deficit spend like the federal government can. When the economy falters many individuals lose their jobs or earn less. Many companies make less profit or go out of business altogether. The tax contributions of these people and companies go down. With less money coming in, state governments suspend projects and lay people off. The laid off workers join the unemployed, spending less in the economy and paying less taxes. The companies who have lost their state contracts lay off more workers too. The more people without jobs, the weaker demand in the economy gets and the worse the recession gets. It's a classic catch-22.

In my city of Visalia, California a major street project on Mooney Boulevard, Visalia's main thoroughfare, has been suspended by the state budget crisis. The road remains torn up in many places, impeding access into local businesses; the contractors are without work. The phenomenon is nationwide. In Alabama, for example, the budget crunch has resulted in a 7.7% reduction in state jobs.

There is only one entity capable of reversing this contraction, the federal government in Washington. After meeting with the nation's governors in December, Obama appears ready to act. See the Wall Street Journal article on that here. California, with over 11% of the country's population, could be getting a bit more than $21 billion. That could erase about half the state's projected deficit and prevent the loss of many more jobs than would otherwise occur.

Will this recovery plan, designed to create or save now 4 million jobs, be expensive? Absolutely. But what is the cost of doing nothing? More than 2.6 million jobs have disappeared in the past year. What is the cost of that? If the dynamic goes on purchasing power will continue to decline and suck the entire economy down the maelstrom. The key is to make sure the funds, perhaps $850 billion in all, are actually spent on things that will help produce purchasing power that will circulate through the system. As Obama said in his Inaugural, the issue is not big or small government, but effective government.

In the bargain, as in the New Deal, we should also be getting some useful assets, such as modernized electrical and communications grids, restored roads and bridges, a jump on green energy production and current energy conservation, among many other long overdue infrastructure items.

As a friend of mine who is a leader in rural development in Oregon says, localities cannot act if they are offered loans. They are strapped and cannot take on more debt when they cannot even afford to meet current obligations. This is the kind of approach it is going to take to get the country moving again. We will see over the next three to four weeks whether congressional Democrats will have the discipline to stick to the essential priorities and whether congressional Republicans will decide to share credit for the recovery program as Obama is offering them or opt to reject it on the grounds they will be able to make hay if it fails. It should be interesting. In the meantime, however, the nation needs action, bold and swift.

Obama Hits the Ground Running

Barack Obama hasn't wasted any time getting to work on living up to his oath of office--you know, the part about protecting and defending the U.S. Constitution. First, to make sure there was no question about it, he asked Chief Justice John Roberts to the White House to administer the oath properly, to remove any uncertainly lingering from the jurist's mistake-filled performance at the U.S. Capitol on Inauguration Day. Then came the first repair work. Obama is getting busy with the glue and tape to put the Constitution back together after the shredding it took under the Bush-Cheney junta.

On the campaign trail Obama frequently promised to redress the wrongs initiated the past eight years. He spoke of restoring adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law. In the Inaugural Address he excoriated the "false choice" between our values and our defense.

Today he took four specific actions designed to restore government adherence to the U.S. constitution. This is most welcome. A government which does not respect and follow its constitution is a government on the way to dictatorship. The four actions were:

1) Ordered Guantanamo Bay shut down
2) Banned torture
3) Ordered a full review of detention policies and procedures
4) Suspended all military tribunal trials pending thorough examination of the history and propriety of the procedures involved.

He also followed new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the State Department. Hillary got a rock star reception from 1,000 State Department employees by telling them, among other things, that their professional expertise would be welcome once again, that this administration was serious about diplomacy and development and that she welcomed a good debate over honest analysis. After two terms of pressured analysis, imposed conclusions and forced compliance with official dogma our foreign service pros were ecstatic. If you saw this on television you can attest that the diplomats and analysts were rapturous.

This is all an exceedingly good sign of things to come. Honesty. Ethics. Principles. Free discussion. Legality. And all on the second full day in office. This is starting to sound like the United States of America again.

Inauguration Party

I was part of an Inauguration Party on Tuesday Night. The local Democratic Party made arrangements with a local restaurant to host a big dinner and fest for the nught of January 20, since many people had to work and would miss the Inauguration live.

It was held at Crawdaddy's, a New Orleans style place. People were asked to RSVP in advance in order not to overbook. We wound up with 227 attendees at $15 each. The admission included a dinner. This did not quite cover the costs. The local Party (the Central Committee) also raised some funds with a 50-50 drawing, in which a woman won $318, and by the sale of merchandise. So all in all it probably about broke even. The mood was festive and jubilant, as you might expect it to be among politically interested people when their candidate has just assumed the presidency.

I was the MC for the evening. The event was held on two floors, so pretty much everything had to be announced on one floor and then duplicated on the other. We had a fine black gospel singer on the second floor. The four local Democratic Clubs had their presidents introduced themselves to the crowd and invited people to join. The four clubs were the Visalia Democratic Club, Tulare Democratic Club, Democratic Women of Tulare County and The College of the Squoias Young Democrats.

We had three speakers. Victor Moheno of Visalia is a local attorney and longtime Democratic activist talked mostly about issues. Dean Singh had been a delegate to the National Convention in Denver and spoke of his experience there. Finally, Jake Torrance spoke on the impact on society from the perspective of an African-American.

After that everyone was invited to crowd into the second floor to watch two video presentations. First, local Tulare resident Stan Carter had produced an 8-minute piece that included interviews with African-American senior citizens speaking about their reactions to this momentous election, considering everything they have been through. That was followed by a showing of the swearing in and President Obama's Inaugural Address.

Doors opened at 6:00 and we said good night shortly after 9:00. Many who participated were surprised to see so many celebrating Dems in this majority Republican county. There was also extensive coverage in the local press and even on television news. You can read the Visalia Times-Delta story here. It was a great day for Democrats and Obama supporters in Tulare County.

Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie

Pete Seeger finally got the last word today. The 89-year-old folk singer, blackballed in the 1950s and 1960s for his populist lyrics, took the stage with Bruce Springsteen in front of the Lincoln Memorial with the Obama family and several hundred thousand in attendance and proceeded to lead them all in a round of "This Land Is Your Land" using Woody Guthrie's original lyrics. For a fellow who rode the rails with Guthrie during the Great Depression the irony could not have been sweeter. The old guy smiled from ear to ear.

Here are the full lyrics.

This Land Is Your Land
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin'- I saw a sign there
And the sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side ... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Chorus (2x)

Bush's Farewell Address

I think the most fateful decision of the past nine years may well have been George W. Bush's selection of Dick Cheney to head his vice presidential search team once W locked up the Republican nomination in 2000. If he had chosen another of his father's old hands, say somebody like Brent Scowcroft, the history of the past eight years would be considerably different. We would still have had some of Bush's "born again" domestic initiatives. We would still have had a corporate-friendly domestic slant. The fiscal foolishness would have been a bit more benign. Most importantly, the neoconservative foreign policy nonsense would likely never have happened.

Bush ran almost entirely on domestic issues. He had no foreign policy experience whatever. To the extent he spoke of it, he said he opposed "nation building," a reference to Bill Clinton's actions in such places as Bosnia and Kosovo, and talked of conducting a "humble" foreign policy, as he put it. He was about cutting taxes, rolling back environmental protections and expanding faith-based programs. The heck with foreigners.

The Cheney decision changed all that. Before long the veteran bureaucratic infighter informed his less than astute boss that he'd found a superbly qualified running mate--himself. Once the Supreme Court ruled Bush the general election winner, Cheney brought in the whole crew from the Project for a New American Century. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and company moved into the power vacuum created by Bush's ignorance. They convinced him of their millennial theory and flattered Bush that he was the anointed to carry it out. 9/11 expedited things by providing the useful pretext.

We heard yet another defense of this ridiculous and now demonstrably failed academic construct last night. As Bush would tell it, he had acted to bring democracy and freedom to the Middle East through the barrel of a gun. As a result the region is currently on track to usher in an era of lasting peace. If American constitutional principles had to be abridged, so be it. One could argue with his decisions, but not with the fact that he had the guts to make the tough calls, he told us.

It is astounding how the path of events have failed to disabuse Bush of his illusions. The attempt to occupy Muslim countries in the Middle East has not created stable, friendly, peace-loving nations there. The abandonment of the rule of law has not proven effective in garnering supporters or defeating enemies. People in the region do not like Israel or the United States. When given the vote they tend to elect people like Hamas, Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad and Iraqi Shi'ites who cozy up to Iran.

This was the vision he sold a frightened American public seven years ago. The majority bought it because they were scared and they presumed a president had to know what he was talking about. Very few people in the rest of the world bought it. The American people themselves stopped believing in it three years ago. Rather pitifully, Bush was still selling it last night in his last speech to the American people as President. These days, no one is buying and few are even listening.

One can foresee him appearing at future Republican conventions, every four years making one more effort to reclaim that day when he stood in the rubble at ground zero with his popularity at 91%. Retiring at the age of 62, Bush will be like Herbert Hoover, who haunted and embarrassed Republican conventions into the 1960s trying to peddle the absurdity that his Depression policy was working and that it had really been Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal that prolonged the suffering.

As a former president, Bush will be shown due respect for the office he held. His reputation, however, will never be rehabilitated. It is not enough to have made tough calls. A president has to get them right. That is his tragedy, and ours.

District Caucus

Last Sunday the eleventh I participated in an interesting exercise in grassroots democracy. The California Democratic Party selects delegates to its state convention in a number of ways. Elected officials automatically get seats. County Central Committees get to name delegates too. Our county of Tulare got to name ten, for instance. And another bloc is chosen at caucuses meeting in each of the 80 State Assembly Districts. All these will meet in Sacramento April 24-26.

Our district, the thirty-fourth, was allotted 12 delegates to be selected at the Assembly District caucus. All you had to do to be a candidate was to register on the State Party website by December 31st. While doing so the candidates were allowed to include a statement. Then the party would check to make sure each potential candidate resided in the district and was a registered Democrat by October 20, the cutoff date to register in time to vote in the last general election.

Our caucus was held at the Holiday Inn in Tehachapi, a town in the mountains southeast of Bakersfield. The population and the elevation both stand at about 4,000. There were patches of snow visible almost down to the elevation of the town. Though Sunday was temperate and mild with a high about 60, Tehachapi is customarily one of the windiest places in the state. As you descend into town on State Route 58 you can see phalanxes of wind turbines on the ridges south and east of town.

Tehachapi was chosen because it sits in approximately the geographic center of the district. The thirty-fourth is the most gerrymandered district in California, which is saying something. In the Central Valley it extends north of Visalia. From there it proceeds south into Kern County, bypassing Bakersfield and proceeding out into the Mohave Desert to encompass the towns of Barstow and Ridgecrest. From there it bends north into the Owens Valley on the Eastern Slope of the Sierra to take in Lone Pine and Bishop. It's shaped like a giant fish hook to ensure a safe Republican District in a majority Democratic state.

We commuted over a hundred miles and nearly two hours to get there. This all meant the key for people getting elected was a question of showing up at the caucus, and maybe bringing a few friends along for numerical support. As members of the Central Committee, Barbara, Ricardo, Chris Walker (President of the College of the Sequoias Young Democrats) and I checked the people in as they arrived. We're all already among the ten delegates chosen from among the twenty-five members of the Central Committee itself. The other folks who came in gave their names and we looked them up on the state party data base to make sure they were registered Democrats residing in the District.

The doors closed at 1:00. There were 22 registered candidates and 16 of them had showed up. Twenty-three people in all were in attendance at the caucus. They would choose the twelve delegates, six men and six women as called for by Party rules. Each candidate got to speak for one minute. Ricardo chaired the proceedings and kept the time. We had three candidate from our community college club running for seats. The club's vice president, Nathan Benton, spoke for himself. Two others were not in attendance, one because she is in the National Guard and had orders that weekend and the other because of family responsibilities. I spoke for one and Chris for the other.

Remarkably, Nathan and our National Guard college student, Isabel Garcia, were elected. That means three delegates from Tulare County, Chris, Nathan and Isabel, will be very young people. One from among the 12 was then elected to serve as the county's representative on the State Executive Committee. That was Carol Clarke, an active member of the district's largest teacher's union.

It is noteworthy to think that just a few people by getting involved could actually get right into state political matters and have an important voice. Our Young Democrats Club at COS will be more excited than ever at the prospect of attending the State Convention. There were already twelve committed to go, and with three of their own members plus their faculty adviser to serve as delegates that will enhance expectations even more. We drove back from Tehachapi secure in the feeling that our sojourn that day was time well spent.

Obama and Roosevelt, Continued

The overriding challenges confronting Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 and Barack Obama this year are similar in that both concerned the economy. The major difference is one of degree. As serious as the financial and economic problems today are, those faced by FDR in 1933 were incomparably worse.

By the time Roosevelt took office the Great Depression had been underway for nearly three and a half years. Over that time the Gross National Product of the American economy had been cut nearly in half, falling from $104 billion in 1929 to $56 billion in 1933. Five thousand bank failures had erased nine million bank accounts. Unemployment stood at 25%. Underemployment, including both the unemployed and those with meager or part-time employment insufficient to maintain their financial obligations, may have reached 50%. No one knows for sure. The price of industrial stocks had plummeted by 80%. People were so desperate that when the Soviet trade office in New York announced a need for 6,000 skilled workers to go to Communist Russia, 100,000 Americans applied.

In agriculture, farm income had fallen from $12 billion in 1929 to $5 billion in 1932. Wheat sold for twenty-three cents a bushel. Overall, farm prices had dropped 50%, far below the cost of production. In response, farmers plowed corn under, poured milk into the ground and allowed cotton to rot in the fields. The governors of several states shut down their school systems, there being no money to pay for them. Other states mobilized their national guards to control fighting over farm foreclosures. Health researchers estimated 90% of the citizens of Kentucky and West Virginia suffered from malnutrition.

Today’s figures are of a far different magnitude. The recession has lasted 13 months to date. GDP appears to have fallen 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2007 and will perhaps come in at a four to five percent loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. Twenty-five American banks failed in 2008, the biggest of which, Washington Mutual, was taken over by JP Morgan Chase. The stock market index has fallen 40% since its peak at over 14,000 in October of 2007. Unemployment is currently at 7.2%, with fears it may reach 10. If you add in the underemployed as reported this week, that figure could be as high as 13%. States and municipalities are strapped; in California Governor Schwarzenegger is contemplating cutting school funding by 4%, cutting the school year by a week and furloughing state employees two days a month. In a current sore spot for the ag sector, milk prices are once again below the cost of production. The bottom line is that if the 2009 Inaugural will be held in difficult times, 1933 took place during unmitigated catastrophe.

Looking at the campaigns that brought them to office, there were several similarities. Roosevelt pledged serious change, what he called “a new deal for the American people.” He ran against the record of the incumbent, Herbert Hoover, whom he blamed for the state of the nation’s ills. Obama also hammered home the change message, in the form of “change we can believe in” and later, “the change we need.” Although the incumbent, George W. Bush was not running, Obama attempted to tie his opponent John McCain as closely to Bush as possible so that he too would have an advantage as though he were running against an unpopular incumbent.

Both Roosevelt and Obama were accused of dangerous radicalism by their opponents. Hoover called the Democrats “the party of the mob” and likened FDR’s ideas to those of Soviet Communism. McCain similarly attempted to paint Obama as out of the mainstream, calling him a “socialist” and accusing him of questionable associations. Neither charge appeared to resonate with the voters as both FDR and Obama were elected by comfortable margins.

Though both won solid election victories, Roosevelt surveyed the crowd at his inaugural secure in the knowledge that his election was an immense landslide and Congress stood ready to approve more or less anything he proposed. Of the two, Roosevelt’s victory was much the more decisive. Because conditions were so much worse in 1933, a larger majority were eager to make a change. Roosevelt captured 57.4% of the popular vote to Hoover’s 39.7%. FDR won 42 of the 48 states and captured the electoral vote 472-59. His party controlled the House of Representatives by almost three to one, 310-117, and the Senate 60 to 36.

When Obama turns from taking the oath to begin his Inaugural Address, he may face a sea of as many as 1,500,000 faces. But he will probably not have quite Roosevelt’s political muscle. Obama won a substantial victory, though not an overwhelming one. He took 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain’s 45.7% and won the electoral vote 365 to 173. His party will enjoy a margin of 258-177 in the House and probably 59-41 in the Senate.

The country had to wait longer for the Roosevelt inauguration, too. According to the original Constitutional wording it took place on March 4, seventeen weeks after the election. The Twentieth Amendment, passed in 1932, has meant that in every election since Roosevelt’s in 1933 the inaugural is held on January 20th, a full six weeks earlier.

And Obama has had a more cooperative relationship with the man he is succeeding than Roosevelt did. Hoover beseeched FDR to make public statements supporting his policies in order to bolster confidence in the economy. Roosevelt pointedly refused, both because he strongly disagreed with Hoover’s laissez-faire approach to combating the Depression and also because he wanted to make no commitments until he had the authority to act. Their ride together to the Capitol steps took place in icy silence.

In contrast, once the slings and arrows of the 2008 campaign were over, President Bush and President-elect Obama have been most gracious to each other. Bush has invited Obama to the White House twice and has seemingly sought to coordinate some of his anti-recession actions, such as the auto bailout and in moving to make more of the recovery funds available when Obama takes office. For his part, though Obama is deferring to President Bush on foreign matters he has been making frequent statements on economic affairs, almost as though he is already president. This is very different from Roosevelt’s pre-inaugural practice.

Of course, no comparison of the two inaugurals would be complete without mention of the groundbreaking nature of the two men themselves. Roosevelt broke precedent as the first disabled president. Afflicted with polio as a young man, FDR was usually confined to a wheel chair and could only stand with the aid of leg braces or walk laboriously supported by the arm of a strong man. At his public appearances this was often one of his sons. His 146-foot walk to the dais at his Inauguration earned the respect of many. Radio broadcaster Ed Hill remarked, “If this man had the courage to lift himself by sheer willpower from the bed of invalidism…then he must have within him the qualities to lead the nation to recovery.”

For his part, Obama’s election as the nation’s first president of African-American descent will be remembered as a great historic watershed as long as the nation’s history is told. His inauguration is a powerful signal of the nation’s progress toward its founding dream of universal human equality. And just as Roosevelt marshaled America’s hope and will by memorably declaring, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” so will Obama seek to unite his fellow citizens in the shared vision of the possible and the best we can become. A presidential inauguration has traditionally been a time when Americans of all parties come together in wishing the new president well, when optimism and hope reign supreme. As such, it remains one our most important and unifying civic rituals, as essential to the fabric of our democracy in 2009 as it was in 1933.

Obama and Roosevelt: How Similar?

On Tuesday the twentieth of January the American republic will observe one of its most profound quadrennial rites, the inauguration of a president. Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the requirement with these words:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

January 20, 2009 will mark the fifty-sixth Inaugural Ceremony since the first for George Washington in 1789, and Barack Obama will embark upon the forty-fourth separate American presidency. With the acceptance of this oath a private citizen assumes the executive authority of the American government, is symbolically invested with the hopes of the American people and becomes the single most powerful person on Earth.

As we prepare to welcome the new chief executive and wish him and our country a successful next four years, it is difficult not to think back nineteen inaugurations and seventy-six years ago, to March 4, 1933. Consider the parallels between now and that distant time beyond the memories of most now living, when Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office. As he looked out to an estimated crowd of 150,000 gathered at the steps of the Capitol, the former Governor of New York had much to contemplate.

A new president was set to be inaugurated, a new kind of candidate who personified can-do optimism and dramatic change. He was to replace an unpopular predecessor in the midst of economic turmoil and uncertainty. Huge financial institutions had closed their doors. Millions had lost their jobs, their savings and their homes. Millions more feared they would be next. Not only was the confidence of the people shaken from within, but purveyors of violent ideologies threatened aggression from without.

If you feel that sounds a lot like today, you are not alone. There are a number of interesting parallels between 1933 and 2009, but there are important differences as well. We'll take a closer look in the next edition.

A Worthy Championship Game

Tonight's BCS Championship Game displayed a fine exhibition of college football at its best. The Florida Gators prevailed over the Oklahoma Sooners 24-14 in a game most experts picked correctly as a close Florida win. What few certainly expected was such a low-scoring game between teams that averaged 45 (Gators) and 50 (Sooners) points a game.

There was a high level of skill at all positions. The lines, linebackers and offensive and defensive backs and ends were sharp and well-coached. Even the punters were excellent. It's easy to see that the top programs in college football have their pick from among the premium athletes. Without a "draft order" such as pro sports teams have, the top 12-15 schools can corner a very high proportion of the nation's best high school talent.

After watching parts of most of the 34 bowl games this year and seeing what other schools had to work with, the difference is clear. The players at this level are not only bigger, but the big guys have agility that the ones at lower levels don't. The receivers consistently make tough catches in traffic. The quarterbacks have arms strong enough to get the ball far downfield and to zip it through tight coverage. And the ball carriers and defensive backs have lightning in their legs.

What is predictable and rather disappointing is how the commentators award practically all the credit to the offense, and the quarterback in particular. Oklahoma typically gives up about the same number of points Florida scored on them in this game. They lost not because Tim Tebow, who played a grittily effective game, led the Gators to 24 points but because the Florida defense held the nation's highest-scoring offense led by Heisman-Trophy-winning quarterback Sam Bradford to only two touchdowns. Oklahoma this year averaged 35 points by halftime!

The Oklahoma attack looked highly efficient in the beginning but ground down. Early in the game Florida stuffed it in four tries at the goal line. Later they blocked a field goal. At a critical juncture a defensive back showed cobra reflexes in ripping a reception out of the hands of an All-American end as both hurtled though the air for a drive-killing interception.

The game was suspenseful and close because the defenses kept both explosive offenses under control most of the time. They had to earn every yard tonight, and even when big plays moved the ball down the field, more often than not the defenses dug in and refused to give up a touchdown. In a game like this I wish they'd give a little more love to the defenders--tonight's unsung heroes.

Inaugural Night Event

Our Democratic County Central Committee is planning an evening event the night of the Inauguration to show the ceremony so those who are at work or in school can see it and share the excitement with other supporters. I'm on an ad hoc committee of four charged with setting this up. We've made arrangements at a local restaurant to host and provide a buffet. If it proceeds as planned it will be at Crawdaddy's on Burke and Main in Visalia. It should cost no more than $15 a head and go from 6:00 to 9:00 the night of January 20, a Tuesday.

Crawdaddy's is a three-story New Orleans-style place with the brick and wrought iron that would make it look right at home in the French Quarter. I've been tapped to be the emcee. There should be good Cajun eats. We'll have an invocation, flag salute, a taped greeting and comment on the importance of the moment from a local 104-year-old African-American and a good speaker. We'll introduce our local club chairs and they'll invite people to join their groups. Then we will show the Inaugural festivities from Dianne Feinstein's call to order through the swearing in of the President and Vice President and the Inaugural Address. Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perleman and others will be among those performing.

We're all looking forward to it and it ought to be a day and night to remember. If you are interested in coming and want to reserve a ticket or two let me know or give a call to Pam Mayo at (559) 732-1002.

Stimulus Plan Taking Shape

Two things are becoming clear about President-elect Obama's stimulus plan; Congress won't be ready to pass it when he takes office on January 20 and quite a bit of it is likely to come in the form of tax cuts. Is Obama angling for Republican support, caving in to their views, or what, exactly?

The outlines of the plan of about $800 billion over two years includes perhaps $350 billion of that in tax cuts, $150 billion in aid to the states, and the other $300 billion in infrastructure investment. Obama and Congress are right not to promise to pass such an immense program two weeks from now after 24 or 48 hours of consideration. It is way too big and complicated for that and deserves serious hearings and overview. That is the way the Bush White House did things with Tom DeLay, Denny Hastert and Trent Lott running the show in Congress. That's how we got the abuses of the "Patriot" Act, "Clear Skies" and Cheney's energy plan stampeded into law. By all means a thorough, though not protracted, examination should take place, including the consideration of amendments. That's Congress' job.

The tax cuts are indeed a dangle to encourage Republican votes. Obama talked about bipartisan and postpartisan approaches to problem solving and here is obviously an opportunity to show it. He wants to do more than just get a couple of moderates to jump the GOP ship to get the 60 votes he'll need in the Senate; he wants 12 or 15 to join the Democrats and pass the bill with an overwhelming 70 votes or so. The key here is a game of "chicken." The tax cuts Obama and the Democrats will be pushing for will be ones designed to get money quickly to businesses that are truly small and to individuals who are middle and working class. That means they won't all necessarily be income taxes. This is what Obama talked about in the campaign. The Republicans want to slash corporate and capital gains levies, but they cannot win that argument with the public if Obama exposes a plan like that for what it is. The tradeoff is that he won't push to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the rich right now. He'll let them expire in 2010 as they are scheduled to.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is trying to undermine Obama's apparent direction by suggesting, among other things, that any help to the states be made as loans, not grants. The intent seems to be to water down the effectiveness of such a program. It was national economic policy that put the states in the trouble most now face, that and federal mandates such as the flawed "No Child Left Behind" Act. The states must balance budgets and cannot borrow or print money like Washington can. The only way they will be able to balance budgets in these times is by drastic cuts, a practice that Nobel Economist Paul Krugman points out would cut demand and worsen the recession just as similar moves did during the Hoover days.

In the end, Obama and the Democratic Congress should be able to adopt a couple of his key campaign promises, tax relief for average Americans and a strong infrastructure program, by working things this way. The deficit will be higher than they would have liked, but the Republicans would fight rescinding Bush's cuts tooth and nail and might draw the fight out long enough to delay recovery for millions of Americans for many more months. Avoiding that has to be the priority for those whose objective is to speed recovery and help the American people.

Keeping Friends

Yesterday reader Webfoot stopped by. It was great to see an old friend. He'd dropped his daughter off in Stockton at University of the Pacific for the spring term, where she is a sophomore music major. How things have changed.

We were both in our twenties ourselves when we met at the middle school in San Bernardino County (about 35 miles east of Los Angeles) where we had gotten jobs teaching. We worked together for 16 years. I was best man at his wedding, we were golf buddies, we took our kids camping together. Then I got the community college job and am in my tenth year here in Visalia. Thanks to the marvel of e-mail we've been in regular contact ever since. We've also played in fantasy baseball and football leagues as competitors many times.

We went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. For 6.95 apiece we got enough food for two meals each. (I ought to do a story on the excellent restauranting around here.) We talked a little politics and then caught up on the doings of our wives and kids. My wife has just bought a car, for instance, a hybrid no less. Good for her. Then a little about the increasing aches and pains now that we're both in our fifties. Although he is just barely in his, I have to concede.

Afterwards I drove him around town a little. Then he had a three and a half hour drive ahead of him back to southern Cal. He would be sure to engage in his hobby, finding a couple of geocaches along the way, of course. He was a geography major. If you're interested, in geocaching you use a GPS locater to try to find little hidden "caches" that people have left around. Then you sign the book and post that you've found the hidden treasure. He does a blog on it called Electronic Breadcrumbs. You can go to it here.

Anyway, as he drove off and in the day since I can say I'm really happy we've kept up our correspondence. Our time together was quite at ease. There was none of that awkward kind of stuff where you see someone you haven't in a long time and find you seem to have little in common or rapport anymore. Keeping up with friends is a great thing to do.

Second Amendment Decision's Surprise Results

Back on July 24 I commented on the Supreme Court's important ruling that the Second Amendment should be interpreted as conferring a personal right to gun ownership rather than merely authorizing militias to be armed. The justices thereby struck down Washington, D.C.'s ban on handguns. You can see that commentary here.

Gun rights proponents saw the ruling as an opportunity to overturn practically every gun restriction in the book. There have since been sixty challenges to various and sundry gun restrictions brought to federal courts in the past five months. And surprisingly, as UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler sums up:

There have been suits against laws banning possession of firearms by felons, drug addicts, illegal aliens, and individuals convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. The courts have ruled on the constitutionality of laws prohibiting particular types of weapons, including sawed-off shotguns and machine guns, and specific weapons attachments. Defendants have challenged laws barring guns in school zones and post offices, and laws outlawing "straw" purchases, the carrying of concealed weapons, possession of an unregistered firearm, and particular types of ammunition. The courts have upheld every one of these laws.

You can read Winkler's article here.

Winkler points out that the basis for these rulings is contained in the July decision. To whit,

The basis for most of these lower court rulings upholding gun control is a paragraph near the end of the Supreme Court's decision that, at the time, seemed like a throwaway. The Supreme Court wrote that "nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions on the commercial sale of arms."

As it turns out, just about all the state and local gun restriction laws fit into one or more of these categories. What seemed at the time a potentially momentous ruling has instead not changed much at all. After losing sixty straight cases, gun rights advocates have got to be pretty disappointed with how this is turning out.