[NOTE: The following article will also appear as my regular television column for WILDsound.]
Shonda Rhimes presides over quite an empire. She is the creator and executive producer of “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC, Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. Eastern), one of the top-rated scripted shows on the air, as well as “Private Practice” (ABC, Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. Eastern), the “Grey’s” spin-off that was one of the top-rated new programs of last year’s strike-abbreviated season. But while her creations have been unquestionably successful in terms of viewership, they both have taken some hits from critics ("Grey's" for losing its way, "Private" for not finding one in the first place). With both shows returning in the last week for their new seasons (the fifth for "Grey's," and the second for "Private"), it's time to ask: Are the shows heading in the right direction?
I have often accused "Grey's" of overplaying the disaster card. It seemed like every week there would be some kind of colossal event, whether it be a ferry wreck or a patient with a bomb inside of him. I've joked that I've been to Seattle, and it's just not that exciting. And being the parent of a Seattle Grace Hospital doctor involves a higher mortality rate than cliff diving.
I'm happy to report that in this season's two-hour premiere, no parents are harmed, and no mass catastrophes befall the fine city of Seattle. In fact, not much at all is happening at the hospital, since not only has Seattle Grace been dropped from second to 12th in the rankings of surgical residency programs, but the trauma center has been demoted one level, meaning all of the real serious emergency cases are being sent across town to Seattle Mercy.
To me, this was a brilliant move, on several fronts. First of all, I think focusing the attention away from a disaster-of-the-week mentality and back on the characters shifts the program back to the formula that made the early seasons work so well, when the doctors' in-and out-of-hospital dramas drove the episodes. Even more importantly, the downgrading reflected the anarchy that had beset the surgical staff at Seattle Grace over the previous couple of years. The array of questionable conduct by the staff included an intern (Katherine Heigl's Dr. Izzie Stevens) killing a patient (her fiance, no less) in an attempt to make him sick enough to get to the top of a heart-donor list, the head cardiac surgeon (the now-departed Dr. Preston Burke, played by Isiah Washington until he went Anita Bryant on the set) operating with hand tremors and allowing his intern/fiance (Sandra Oh's Christina Yang) to do his work for him, and the renown plastic surgeon (Eric Dane's Dr. Mark Sloan) who through his lecherous behavior inspired a rebellion of the nursing staff, not to mention enough in-staff hook-ups to make the managers of a swingers' club jealous. It seemed only right that with so much going on that had nothing to with the practice of medicine, the reputation of Seattle Grace had to take a beating.
But not everything changed with the coming of a new season. The on-again, off-again romance between Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) seemed to get a resolution in least year's finale, when Meredith built a "house of candles" on the site Derek picked out for a home for them to share. But Meredith spent the whole two-hour premiere whining and freaking out about her fear of commitment after she asks Derek to move in with her. When Christina finally couldn't take it anymore and yelled at her to shut up, I think she was speaking for most of the viewing audience. I know I, at least, have had it with Meredith's dithering. Let's hope that her decision at the end of the episode to allow Derek to move in with her will end her constant whining and obsessing on the subject. It's time for her to face new demons (of which she obviously has plenty).
And "Grey's" hasn't completely lost its taste for the bizarre medical twist. Christina getting stabbed with a falling icicle was so silly, I couldn't believe I was watching the whole subplot unfold on network television. (I mean, wouldn't it just have melted in a few minutes?)
But I liked the shifted focus of the show. I like what appears to be the overriding plot line for the first part of this season, Chief of Surgery Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) cracking down to make sure that the hospital regains its high standing. When he gave a speech to the doctors about the need for them to get better, it was like Rhimes was speaking through him as to what needs to be done on the show itself. And I liked that the plots were driven by the relationships between the doctors and a handful of interesting -- but plausible -- medical cases. Christina's instant alliance with army surgeon Dr. Own Hunt, played by new cast member Kevin McKidd, might have happened to fast to be believable, but at the same time, it beats the past months of her post-Burke descent into self-pity. I think I'm okay with Dr. Lexie Grey's (Chyler Leigh) possibly unrequited crush on repeating intern Dr. George O'Malley (T.R. Knight). And I thought the subplot about stealing three trauma patients from Seattle Mercy by having their wives request it was entertaining. The story gave three well-regarded older actresses (Bernadette Peters, Kathy Baker and Mariette Hartley) the chance to really tear into some juicy scenes.
In the end, it's just good to see that Rhimes is trying to make "Grey's" better. It's a well-written, well-acted show, and it consistently looks great, too, so with the changes made apparent in the premiere, I'm encouraged that this season will be an improvement over the last.
Rhimes's work on "Private" will be more complicated, and more difficult, though. In my review of the spin-off last season, I lamented that in moving from "Grey's" to her new show, Kate Walsh's Dr. Addison Montgomery had "been reduced to a whiny, neurotic basket case." I went on to note: "For a show written and created by a woman, it's hard to believe how all of the women [on the program] are the embodiments of negative stereotypes." And I wasn't the only one who thought that a lot of work had to be done to bring "Private" up to speed.
I was a bit encouraged by last night's season premiere, since it seemed to me that Rhimes was at least trying to portray Addison as more like the strong, confident surgeon she was on "Grey's." In the episode, she stands up to her best friend, Dr. Naomi Bennett (Audra McDonald), both with a patient (fertility specialist Naomi agreed to get a couple pregnant so they could use the umbilical cord blood to save their dying seven-year-old son, but the son has a week to live, so the couple wants the doctors to induce birth, even though the fetus is only six-months old, something Addison is virulently against) and over the medical practice (administrator Naomi has created a financial mess, but she asks Addison not to tell the others, including her ex-husband Dr. Sam Bennett, played by Taye Diggs).
It was nice to see flashes of the "old" Addison. She was confident even in her indecision as she decided whether to accede to the advances of her brooding colleague Dr. Pete Wilder (Tim Daly) and/or the questionably dependable cop she met last season, Kevin Nelson (David Sutcliffe). And, maybe most encouragingly, Addison is back doing surgery.
Now it's time to rehabilitate everyone else in her practice. Naomi spent all of last season stress eating and pouting over the demise of her marriage. Not much has changed, at least not yet, based on her dour demeanor yesterday. And while psychiatrist Dr. Violet Turner (Amy Brenneman) is no longer insanely and pathetically stalking her ex, she is still a needy mess, pestering her best buddy, Dr. Cooper Freedman (Paul Adelstein), about taking their annual vacation together. But Cooper is sleeping on the sly with hospital head honcho Dr. Charlotte King (KaDee Strickland), who is still so emotionally shut off she can't handle any emotion with Cooper beyond lust. The characters are making some tiny steps forward, though. Violent recognizes her neediness with Cooper, and Charlotte makes a gesture to Cooper (even if it is a tiny, pathetic one) after cutting down his effort to move their relationship along. The evolution might be small and slow, but kudos to Rhimes for trying.
Ultimately, though, it's not yet enough. "Private" still lacks the snap and bite of "Grey's." Time will tell if the upcoming addition of "Swingtown" star and former "Melrose Place" resident Grant Show, as Addison's brother, will make things better or worse (let's hope he brings more "Swingtown" and less "Melrose Place"). But, in the end, the show will rise and fall with Addison and her fellow doctors. The "Grey's" doctors may not be all that likable, but they have enough interesting stuff going on to keep you interested. The "Private" gang isn't there yet. Rhimes seems to at least understand the problem. And that's half the battle. For both shows.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
A Bailout May Help the Economy, But Does that Mean It's the Right Thing to Do?
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
Man, this bailout business has created strange bedfellows. The Democratic leaders of Congress have pushed a measure originally proposed by the Republican president (albeit in a very changed form, but still with the support of the administration), and the Republican House minority leader also supported the legislation, and yet, the bailout still went down to defeat today, 228-205.
The vote made for strange bedfellows, with 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans teaming up to say "no." (140 Democrats and 65 Republicans supported the bill.) It's not very often that I am sympathetic to the position of 133 House Republicans (and by "not very often," I really mean "virtually never"), so even if the reasons behind the votes differ, I knew I had to take a deeper look at what was bothering me about this whole bailout deal.
After all, it seems pretty clear that while the subprime mortgage crisis was caused by Wall Street recklessness in an environment of deregulation, a policy urged by Republicans and tolerated by Democrats since Ronald Reagan was president, failure to address the current situation could devastate the finances of the average American. Even the esteemed, even-keeled Warren Buffett warned Saturday that if Congress didn't act, there was a risk of "the biggest financial meltdown in American history."
So for the purposes of this discussion, I'm willing to take at face value that the current bailout legislation, which even in its amended form gives unprecedented power to the executive branch and requires the commitment of an enormous amount of taxpayer dollars, is vital to secure the economy. (For now, we will assume that other alternatives, such as the Swedish approach in 1992 that asked more of the banks, or an idea floated in an article on CommonDreams.org that would impose a securities tax to both pay for the past damages and encourage responsible trading in the future, are not going to do the trick, since, realistically, the government is not considering those ideas, regardless of how effective they would or would not be.)
But what I have come to ask myself is, "So what?" Does the imminent meltdown of the financial markets mean, automatically, that the American taxpayers have to bail out the system? While we know that the immediate good could be served by the government putting up $700 billion of taxpayer money to undo the damage done by Wall Street greed, is such an action really in our long-term national interests?
As I've written before, I'm a strong believer in the idea that an electorate gets the government it deserves. The current economic crisis did not come about in a vacuum. Rather, the need for Congressional intervention was the always-inevitable result of a policy of rampant deregulation. So this crisis isn't something that was suddenly thrust on the American people out of nowhere. Rather, by electing politicians that espoused the system that collapsed, the U.S. electorate also has to take responsibility for the mortgage meltdown.
A part of me feels like if the government now steps in to bail out Wall Street, it will mean that both the financial industry (which behaved in such a manner to foist the current crisis upon us) and the voters will be spared having to suffer the consequences of their actions. So what is to stop the same kind of greed from taking over in the future? Where is the deterrence?
And more importantly, where is the remorse of those responsible for the meltdown? Where do you see the guilty parties taking responsibility for their actions? Even as the bailout was being debated last week, you still heard from a lot of Republican members of the House and Senate who were supporting the concept of a bailout that oversight should be limited so as not to impede Wall Street's ability to prosper. After our economy was pushed to the abyss, they were still fervently clinging to their deregulation Kool-Aid. They were still defending the very policy that had allowed the financial meltdown they were seeking to address. I can't help but feel like the message of why this all happened and how damaging it has been to the country hasn't gotten through to these people.
Sometimes I think, maybe, just maybe, the only way for the politicians, and even more so the electorate, to understand that a more civic-minded approach to governing is needed would be for the full force of the Bush/McCain view of the world to be thrust on the country. Maybe Americans need to connect the dots directly, so that they vividly see with their own eyes that the policies of the elected leaders they supported have directly led to the unemployment, lack of credit, loss of retirement accounts, bank failures, etc. that they would be experiencing (if Buffett is right). Maybe it would foster an aversion to the kind of get-rich-quick, something-for-nothing, support-corporations-over-people approach to governing that has reigned in recent years.
I'm not prepared to say for sure that Congress should turn a blind eye to the economic crisis and say, "You guys made your coffins, now lay in them." But that doesn't mean that we are not losing a big piece of our democracy when we allow the government to socialize $700 billion worth of Wall Street mistakes, and, as importantly, allow the sins and greed (and the governing policy that allowed them to occur) that led to the current crisis to effectively go unpunished. It really is a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don't situation. The taxpayers will pay dearly if Congress doesn't act, but that doesn't mean there won't be a price, perhaps different but possibly equally high, if the government does bail out Wall Street. It's just a matter of which loss you want to accept.
And maybe that' s why a big part of me just wishes that Wall Street is left to solve (or not) its own mess. Yeah, I know that people would be hurt, and I would hardly be happy with that. But, again, maybe we would be better off in the long run, with a better understanding of the importance of governing the right way.
There has to be consequences for actions. Without them, a society can't function. If Congress manages to overcome today's setback and pass a Wall Street bailout this week, those who have profited from advocating a system that was always destined to implode will, in the end, pay no price for their actions. The American taxpayers will be picking up the bill, instead. And that, to me, is a dangerous thing, maybe as bad as the potential financial meltdown Buffett has warned about.
Man, this bailout business has created strange bedfellows. The Democratic leaders of Congress have pushed a measure originally proposed by the Republican president (albeit in a very changed form, but still with the support of the administration), and the Republican House minority leader also supported the legislation, and yet, the bailout still went down to defeat today, 228-205.
The vote made for strange bedfellows, with 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans teaming up to say "no." (140 Democrats and 65 Republicans supported the bill.) It's not very often that I am sympathetic to the position of 133 House Republicans (and by "not very often," I really mean "virtually never"), so even if the reasons behind the votes differ, I knew I had to take a deeper look at what was bothering me about this whole bailout deal.
After all, it seems pretty clear that while the subprime mortgage crisis was caused by Wall Street recklessness in an environment of deregulation, a policy urged by Republicans and tolerated by Democrats since Ronald Reagan was president, failure to address the current situation could devastate the finances of the average American. Even the esteemed, even-keeled Warren Buffett warned Saturday that if Congress didn't act, there was a risk of "the biggest financial meltdown in American history."
So for the purposes of this discussion, I'm willing to take at face value that the current bailout legislation, which even in its amended form gives unprecedented power to the executive branch and requires the commitment of an enormous amount of taxpayer dollars, is vital to secure the economy. (For now, we will assume that other alternatives, such as the Swedish approach in 1992 that asked more of the banks, or an idea floated in an article on CommonDreams.org that would impose a securities tax to both pay for the past damages and encourage responsible trading in the future, are not going to do the trick, since, realistically, the government is not considering those ideas, regardless of how effective they would or would not be.)
But what I have come to ask myself is, "So what?" Does the imminent meltdown of the financial markets mean, automatically, that the American taxpayers have to bail out the system? While we know that the immediate good could be served by the government putting up $700 billion of taxpayer money to undo the damage done by Wall Street greed, is such an action really in our long-term national interests?
As I've written before, I'm a strong believer in the idea that an electorate gets the government it deserves. The current economic crisis did not come about in a vacuum. Rather, the need for Congressional intervention was the always-inevitable result of a policy of rampant deregulation. So this crisis isn't something that was suddenly thrust on the American people out of nowhere. Rather, by electing politicians that espoused the system that collapsed, the U.S. electorate also has to take responsibility for the mortgage meltdown.
A part of me feels like if the government now steps in to bail out Wall Street, it will mean that both the financial industry (which behaved in such a manner to foist the current crisis upon us) and the voters will be spared having to suffer the consequences of their actions. So what is to stop the same kind of greed from taking over in the future? Where is the deterrence?
And more importantly, where is the remorse of those responsible for the meltdown? Where do you see the guilty parties taking responsibility for their actions? Even as the bailout was being debated last week, you still heard from a lot of Republican members of the House and Senate who were supporting the concept of a bailout that oversight should be limited so as not to impede Wall Street's ability to prosper. After our economy was pushed to the abyss, they were still fervently clinging to their deregulation Kool-Aid. They were still defending the very policy that had allowed the financial meltdown they were seeking to address. I can't help but feel like the message of why this all happened and how damaging it has been to the country hasn't gotten through to these people.
Sometimes I think, maybe, just maybe, the only way for the politicians, and even more so the electorate, to understand that a more civic-minded approach to governing is needed would be for the full force of the Bush/McCain view of the world to be thrust on the country. Maybe Americans need to connect the dots directly, so that they vividly see with their own eyes that the policies of the elected leaders they supported have directly led to the unemployment, lack of credit, loss of retirement accounts, bank failures, etc. that they would be experiencing (if Buffett is right). Maybe it would foster an aversion to the kind of get-rich-quick, something-for-nothing, support-corporations-over-people approach to governing that has reigned in recent years.
I'm not prepared to say for sure that Congress should turn a blind eye to the economic crisis and say, "You guys made your coffins, now lay in them." But that doesn't mean that we are not losing a big piece of our democracy when we allow the government to socialize $700 billion worth of Wall Street mistakes, and, as importantly, allow the sins and greed (and the governing policy that allowed them to occur) that led to the current crisis to effectively go unpunished. It really is a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don't situation. The taxpayers will pay dearly if Congress doesn't act, but that doesn't mean there won't be a price, perhaps different but possibly equally high, if the government does bail out Wall Street. It's just a matter of which loss you want to accept.
And maybe that' s why a big part of me just wishes that Wall Street is left to solve (or not) its own mess. Yeah, I know that people would be hurt, and I would hardly be happy with that. But, again, maybe we would be better off in the long run, with a better understanding of the importance of governing the right way.
There has to be consequences for actions. Without them, a society can't function. If Congress manages to overcome today's setback and pass a Wall Street bailout this week, those who have profited from advocating a system that was always destined to implode will, in the end, pay no price for their actions. The American taxpayers will be picking up the bill, instead. And that, to me, is a dangerous thing, maybe as bad as the potential financial meltdown Buffett has warned about.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
It's the Democracy, Stupid: Campaigns of McCain and Palin Show How They Would Govern
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
You hear a lot of laments about the lack of substance in the 2008 presidential campaign. How issues are taking a back seat to inanity, often represented by the McCain campaign's made-up outrage over Barack Obama's use of an expression about putting lipstick on a pig (one, of course, that John McCain had used multiple times in the last year). To me, the real problem is that there is no discussion about the basic vision of the candidates, or what kind of United States they want to see and lead.
After all, taking a stand on an issue is fleeting. McCain flip-flops on his positions on a regular basis (I collected some here), sometimes even in the same day (like his 180-degree turn on the bailout of AIG). And as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed out on This Week last Sunday, it's not enough to know the candidates' takes on specific issues, since, inevitably, once in office, they will have to confront unforeseen problems as they arise.
That's why, to me, a candidate's approach to governing, and the candidate's view of what the United States should be as a nation, is so important.
There is widespread agreement now that George W. Bush was a terrible president. (His disapproval rating is at 68 percent in recent polls by both CNN and CBS News/New York Times.) He presided over five catastrophes that will forever define his presidency: 1) He failed to act on the intelligence warnings about al-Qaeda's plans to fly planes into buildings before the 9/11 terrorist attacks; 2) he lied to Americans and Congress to gain support for an unnecessary war in Iraq; 3) he mismanaged the war in Iraq, leaving America's military broken and its diplomatic standing in the world severely damaged; 4) his administration bungled the reaction to Hurricane Katrina, leading to a humanitarian disaster of a proportion that should never occur in a country as wealthy as ours; and 5) he was the last president (in a line of four) to push deregulation to the point of anarchy, allowing the current subprime-mortgage-related economic crisis to occur.
But any president can make bad judgments. Jimmy Carter was (and is) an intelligent, dedicated and warm-hearted person, but he nevertheless made a series of ill-conceived governing decisions during his four years in office that left his legacy as one of failure.
No, it was not just Bush's blunders that appalled many Americans. Rather it was his disregard for the American values of democracy and respect for the rule of law that has left such a bitter taste in our mouths. Rather than protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States of America (as he swore he would do in his oath of office), Bush pledged to protect and defend his political position and extreme right-wing ideals. His administration lied to justify the war in Iraq. It conducted warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. It politicized the Justice Department, turning it into a body that protected his administration, rather than the American people. He appointed incompetent cronies to government positions, and his administration chose individuals for non-political positions based on political litmus tests. The administration ignored Congressional inquiries and subpoenas, acting as though they were above the law. Nowhere was that attitude more apparent than in the outing of an active CIA agent as political payback to her husband, and then pardoning the only government official convicted in criminal court for having a role in the scandal. Bush's White House condoned the use of torture, thrusting the images of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and waterboarding into the world.
In my view, Bush destroyed any moral right the United States had to speak out about civil rights abuses in other countries. He took the notion of the country as a beacon of freedom and democracy and turned us into a nation that isn't trusted in most of the world. That is the Bush legacy.
And that is what voters should be thinking about when voting in November.
Want to know how McCain would govern? Just look at his campaign. Since it became clear that Obama would be his party's nominee, McCain has conducted his campaign in a manner that no American should be proud of. He has lied and played games, treating the election like it was a schoolyard football game with no referees rather than a civic process to decide the course of the next four years. He has been widely derided, including by many conservatives (even noted conservative George Will blasted McCain on Tuesday), for his shameless dishonesty and political game-playing.
McCain's rap sheet is long and growing, with highlights including: His pandering "celebrity" ad, personally attacking Obama for being popular; his knowingly false ads on the benefits of offshore drilling (blaming Obama's opposition to offshore drilling for $4-a-gallon gas prices, even though he and everyone else knew those charges were false); portraying Obama's support of funding to teach children to recognize and evade sexual predators as "sex education"; saying his lie-filled ads are the fault of Obama, because he did not agree to his demand that they do joint town-hall meetings together; his ceaseless flip-flopping on issues, seemingly taking a position with the sole purpose of making a political point that day (like his 26-year history of deregulating tossed aside to blame Obama for the current economic mess because of a campaign donation); pretending that the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was because she was the most qualified candidate for the job; and his baldly political gambit of "suspending" his campaign and trying to delay both his debate Friday and the vice-presidential debate next month, using the legitimate economic crisis as a cover to stem the free-fall his poll numbers had suffered.
Not to mention McCain campaigning on a pledge to clean up government, all while his campaign is being run by lobbyists. The company of Rick Davis, his campaign manager, accepted $2 million in fees from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (both of which were bailed out by the government earlier this month), with payments reportedly made to his company as recently as last month. And the nation of Georgia paid the firm of McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randall Scheunemann, nearly $900,000 since 2004. That's the same Georgia that McCain steadfastly supported during the conflict last month. And what about McCain taking millions of dollars from oil companies while advocating for their two pet projects: massive tax breaks for them and offshore drilling.
The disconnect between McCain's words and his actions, all in an effort to distort his record into something more palatable for voters, is the central approach to his campaign. And it smells a lot like the last eight years of the Bush administration.
And what of Palin? Her behavior since being nominated has been disturbingly similar to Bush's "I'm above the law" take on democracy. She has ignored subpoenas in the Troopergate investigation (even though a Republican-majority committee in Alaska authorized the probe). She has shut out the media, limiting her appearances to tightly controlled, one-on-one sit-downs with a handful of interviewers. And she has lied over and over again, on issues small (the myth that her teleprompter stopped working during her convention speech) and large (that she opposed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere).
Most disturbingly, as her attacks on Obama's community organizing show, she has an anti-intellectual, culture-war bent to her view of government that is, again, just like the approach of the Bush administration. And her questionable knowledge of the world, from her lack of international travel to her inability to talk about nearly any foreign policy issue without clinging to her talking points (like her trouble with Charles Gibson's question about the Bush Doctrine), is disturbingly reminiscent of our current president.
Obama, on the other hand, has exhibited a different approach to leading a campaign, one that would presumably extend to a different, more open way of governing. Obama's ads, even the toughest ones, have not contained lies and distortions like those of his opponent. He has consistently avoided getting into the muck of dirty politics. He immediately declared a "hands off" policy on statements about Palin's pregnant unmarried teenage daughter. (You think the McCain campaign would have reacted similarly if Obama had a 17-year-old daughter who was expecting?) He consistently praises McCain's patriotism and service, even as McCain uses his time as a prisoner of war to score political points, wielding it as an all-purpose defense to every attack on his record. And Palin mocked Obama's work as a community organizer, turning something that should be lauded by all Americans (giving up financially lucrative employment to help others) into a sneering put-down.
Obama has taken hits for not being specific enough in his plans on specific issues (I guess those critics can't be bothered to read his Web site), but he has done a remarkable job of articulating his vision of what America should be. He has shown himself to be forward-thinking and modern, recognizing that the U.S. is a leader in the world, but that we can't bully other countries into submission whenever we like. Contrast this to McCain, who thinks we can impose our military will to get what we want, with his approach nowhere more apparent than his remarks about meeting with the prime minister of Spain. McCain's gaffe at not understanding that Spain is not in Latin America got the headlines, but lost was his view that leaders only "deserve" to meet with the U.S. president if they've earned it. So Spain, a member of NATO, a democracy, and a country in the European Union, may not merit a meeting since after the elevation of the prime minister's party to power (in an election), the country pulled its troops out of Iraq. Is that really how we want to portray ourselves as a country?
The 2008 election is about which candidate's view of governing America you want to buy into. McCain and Palin have demonstrated, through their behavior, that they will govern like Bush, not just in their policy beliefs, but, like Bush, with a greater interest in political gain than serving the American people. If you enjoyed living with the consequences of Bush's philosophy of government, then you'll love four years under the boots of McCain and Palin.
After all, as voters, we get to choose the type of America in which we want to live. And that's something I take very seriously. As unlikely as it may be, nothing would make me happier than for James Carville to look into the camera on the morning after Election Day and explain an Obama win by tweaking his famous proclamation by saying, "It's about the democracy, stupid." Especially since democracy isn't something we've seen a lot of the last eight years.
You hear a lot of laments about the lack of substance in the 2008 presidential campaign. How issues are taking a back seat to inanity, often represented by the McCain campaign's made-up outrage over Barack Obama's use of an expression about putting lipstick on a pig (one, of course, that John McCain had used multiple times in the last year). To me, the real problem is that there is no discussion about the basic vision of the candidates, or what kind of United States they want to see and lead.
After all, taking a stand on an issue is fleeting. McCain flip-flops on his positions on a regular basis (I collected some here), sometimes even in the same day (like his 180-degree turn on the bailout of AIG). And as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed out on This Week last Sunday, it's not enough to know the candidates' takes on specific issues, since, inevitably, once in office, they will have to confront unforeseen problems as they arise.
That's why, to me, a candidate's approach to governing, and the candidate's view of what the United States should be as a nation, is so important.
There is widespread agreement now that George W. Bush was a terrible president. (His disapproval rating is at 68 percent in recent polls by both CNN and CBS News/New York Times.) He presided over five catastrophes that will forever define his presidency: 1) He failed to act on the intelligence warnings about al-Qaeda's plans to fly planes into buildings before the 9/11 terrorist attacks; 2) he lied to Americans and Congress to gain support for an unnecessary war in Iraq; 3) he mismanaged the war in Iraq, leaving America's military broken and its diplomatic standing in the world severely damaged; 4) his administration bungled the reaction to Hurricane Katrina, leading to a humanitarian disaster of a proportion that should never occur in a country as wealthy as ours; and 5) he was the last president (in a line of four) to push deregulation to the point of anarchy, allowing the current subprime-mortgage-related economic crisis to occur.
But any president can make bad judgments. Jimmy Carter was (and is) an intelligent, dedicated and warm-hearted person, but he nevertheless made a series of ill-conceived governing decisions during his four years in office that left his legacy as one of failure.
No, it was not just Bush's blunders that appalled many Americans. Rather it was his disregard for the American values of democracy and respect for the rule of law that has left such a bitter taste in our mouths. Rather than protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States of America (as he swore he would do in his oath of office), Bush pledged to protect and defend his political position and extreme right-wing ideals. His administration lied to justify the war in Iraq. It conducted warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. It politicized the Justice Department, turning it into a body that protected his administration, rather than the American people. He appointed incompetent cronies to government positions, and his administration chose individuals for non-political positions based on political litmus tests. The administration ignored Congressional inquiries and subpoenas, acting as though they were above the law. Nowhere was that attitude more apparent than in the outing of an active CIA agent as political payback to her husband, and then pardoning the only government official convicted in criminal court for having a role in the scandal. Bush's White House condoned the use of torture, thrusting the images of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and waterboarding into the world.
In my view, Bush destroyed any moral right the United States had to speak out about civil rights abuses in other countries. He took the notion of the country as a beacon of freedom and democracy and turned us into a nation that isn't trusted in most of the world. That is the Bush legacy.
And that is what voters should be thinking about when voting in November.
Want to know how McCain would govern? Just look at his campaign. Since it became clear that Obama would be his party's nominee, McCain has conducted his campaign in a manner that no American should be proud of. He has lied and played games, treating the election like it was a schoolyard football game with no referees rather than a civic process to decide the course of the next four years. He has been widely derided, including by many conservatives (even noted conservative George Will blasted McCain on Tuesday), for his shameless dishonesty and political game-playing.
McCain's rap sheet is long and growing, with highlights including: His pandering "celebrity" ad, personally attacking Obama for being popular; his knowingly false ads on the benefits of offshore drilling (blaming Obama's opposition to offshore drilling for $4-a-gallon gas prices, even though he and everyone else knew those charges were false); portraying Obama's support of funding to teach children to recognize and evade sexual predators as "sex education"; saying his lie-filled ads are the fault of Obama, because he did not agree to his demand that they do joint town-hall meetings together; his ceaseless flip-flopping on issues, seemingly taking a position with the sole purpose of making a political point that day (like his 26-year history of deregulating tossed aside to blame Obama for the current economic mess because of a campaign donation); pretending that the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was because she was the most qualified candidate for the job; and his baldly political gambit of "suspending" his campaign and trying to delay both his debate Friday and the vice-presidential debate next month, using the legitimate economic crisis as a cover to stem the free-fall his poll numbers had suffered.
Not to mention McCain campaigning on a pledge to clean up government, all while his campaign is being run by lobbyists. The company of Rick Davis, his campaign manager, accepted $2 million in fees from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (both of which were bailed out by the government earlier this month), with payments reportedly made to his company as recently as last month. And the nation of Georgia paid the firm of McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randall Scheunemann, nearly $900,000 since 2004. That's the same Georgia that McCain steadfastly supported during the conflict last month. And what about McCain taking millions of dollars from oil companies while advocating for their two pet projects: massive tax breaks for them and offshore drilling.
The disconnect between McCain's words and his actions, all in an effort to distort his record into something more palatable for voters, is the central approach to his campaign. And it smells a lot like the last eight years of the Bush administration.
And what of Palin? Her behavior since being nominated has been disturbingly similar to Bush's "I'm above the law" take on democracy. She has ignored subpoenas in the Troopergate investigation (even though a Republican-majority committee in Alaska authorized the probe). She has shut out the media, limiting her appearances to tightly controlled, one-on-one sit-downs with a handful of interviewers. And she has lied over and over again, on issues small (the myth that her teleprompter stopped working during her convention speech) and large (that she opposed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere).
Most disturbingly, as her attacks on Obama's community organizing show, she has an anti-intellectual, culture-war bent to her view of government that is, again, just like the approach of the Bush administration. And her questionable knowledge of the world, from her lack of international travel to her inability to talk about nearly any foreign policy issue without clinging to her talking points (like her trouble with Charles Gibson's question about the Bush Doctrine), is disturbingly reminiscent of our current president.
Obama, on the other hand, has exhibited a different approach to leading a campaign, one that would presumably extend to a different, more open way of governing. Obama's ads, even the toughest ones, have not contained lies and distortions like those of his opponent. He has consistently avoided getting into the muck of dirty politics. He immediately declared a "hands off" policy on statements about Palin's pregnant unmarried teenage daughter. (You think the McCain campaign would have reacted similarly if Obama had a 17-year-old daughter who was expecting?) He consistently praises McCain's patriotism and service, even as McCain uses his time as a prisoner of war to score political points, wielding it as an all-purpose defense to every attack on his record. And Palin mocked Obama's work as a community organizer, turning something that should be lauded by all Americans (giving up financially lucrative employment to help others) into a sneering put-down.
Obama has taken hits for not being specific enough in his plans on specific issues (I guess those critics can't be bothered to read his Web site), but he has done a remarkable job of articulating his vision of what America should be. He has shown himself to be forward-thinking and modern, recognizing that the U.S. is a leader in the world, but that we can't bully other countries into submission whenever we like. Contrast this to McCain, who thinks we can impose our military will to get what we want, with his approach nowhere more apparent than his remarks about meeting with the prime minister of Spain. McCain's gaffe at not understanding that Spain is not in Latin America got the headlines, but lost was his view that leaders only "deserve" to meet with the U.S. president if they've earned it. So Spain, a member of NATO, a democracy, and a country in the European Union, may not merit a meeting since after the elevation of the prime minister's party to power (in an election), the country pulled its troops out of Iraq. Is that really how we want to portray ourselves as a country?
The 2008 election is about which candidate's view of governing America you want to buy into. McCain and Palin have demonstrated, through their behavior, that they will govern like Bush, not just in their policy beliefs, but, like Bush, with a greater interest in political gain than serving the American people. If you enjoyed living with the consequences of Bush's philosophy of government, then you'll love four years under the boots of McCain and Palin.
After all, as voters, we get to choose the type of America in which we want to live. And that's something I take very seriously. As unlikely as it may be, nothing would make me happier than for James Carville to look into the camera on the morning after Election Day and explain an Obama win by tweaking his famous proclamation by saying, "It's about the democracy, stupid." Especially since democracy isn't something we've seen a lot of the last eight years.
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