Letters to the Editor

• A Presidency Devoured by Itself

  [Read the article: The dismal state of George W. Bush]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Just as Richard Nixon's presidency ended for all intents and purposes the moment the Watergate burglars were captured, so too did George W. Bush's not long after the moment of impact of the first aircraft on the World Trade Center.

  Nixon was forced to reign in disgrace; Bush will not be. Nixon--or Nixonianism--was the proximate cause of the event that destroyed him; Bush was more or less the receipient, and certainly not the cause, of the 9/11 attack, he was virtually an innocent bystander.

  Assuming he had some sort of agenda when he took office, it was instantly superceded by 9/11. He was transformed from the guy who won an election through the use of legal technicalities, to the focal point of American domestic unity. His gravitas was no longer in question, nor were his credentials to lead the country. He was the President of the United States, and the United States had just been attacked by foreign enemies on its own soil. And the attack was perpetrated not by soldiers, not by ICBMs, but by 19 lunatics; religious fanatics anxious to die for their cause.

  A response was imperative, a ferocious response. But the enemy was non-national in character, a cloaked band of religious zealots to whom an identifiable national homeland was as important as that is to a nest cockroaches. But we did, at least, where know where most of these murderers were being sheltered: Afgahanitstan.

  We attacted and achieved some successes. But then suddenly Bush's attention turned away from the attackers--Al Qaeda--and began to focus on a nation-state as the enemy, a nation-state ruled by a brute who we battled a decade ago. The focus of Bush's 9/11 response became Iraq and Saddam.

  And that switch in focus, rather than 9/11 itself, was to become the event that devoured Bush. He, like Nixon, initiated his own demise; not for the venal, morally currupt and petty reasons that drove Nixon.

  Bush was, rather, driven by misinformation from within his own government; by a lingering desire (which Bill Clinton may have shared) to finish the job begun his father George H. W. Bush a decade earlier; by a naieve perhaps messianic belief that his purpose in life was to spread democracy--by force, if neccesary--to other nations living under tryanny; and most of all to grossly inadequate contingency planning which at its core was based on mere wishful thinking.

  George W. Bush's destiny was 9/11; he had no control over that. But he destroyed his legacy by actions that he alone controlled. And that is how he, like Richard Nixon, will be remembered by history.

  How terribly sad.

  Permalink Tuesday, January 29, 2008 08:46 PM

• Truman (McCain) vs. Dewey (Romney) Redux

  [Read the article: Quote of the night]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Unless there is a remarkable turn of events in Iraq, we are back to a presidential campaign whose core issue is likely to be, "It's the economy, stupid."

  Mr. Romney's new worth is estimated to be somewhere between $180 to $250,000,000. And though his father was both a Governor (of Michigan) and the head guy of American Motors Coproration, Mitt Romney accumulated his great wealth largely through his own financial brilliance. Please note the word "financial."

  Unlike his father, he did not run a company that actually produced something. His father's company built cars. Milt's company manipulated capital and did so very successfully. He was a master of Leveraged Buyouts (LBO) of other companies (which did produce products) wherein the assets of the company being "bought out" were used as the collateral by the purchasing company to secure hugh loans enabling them to buy their targets. Brilliant, for sure.

  Now Mr. Romney is touting himself as the "businessman"-candidate who can rescue the econmy from its current woes.

  The only problem is that the roots of the economy's current woes lie in the very same capital-manipulation economy that the candidate was so masterful in himself. There is not a whole lot of difference to securitzing subprime mortgages or devising Collateralize Bond Obligations, Derivatives, incredibly sophisticated credit swap arrangements and LBOs. They are ingenious inventions from ingenious minds like Mr. Romney's. And when things go right with them, unimaginable sums of money can be made.

  But when things go wrong--as they are now--the rapidity of capital losses are surpassed only by their enormity in dollars. That's what the US economy is faced with today: Things are going wrong bigtime in the world of capital manipulation. And that's where Mr. Romney made his money, not by building bicycles or televisions.

  McCain needs to shine light on the Romney "businessman" image and penetrate beyond that word into how Mr. Romney actually made all that dough. Nothing illegal, but hardly a guy who opened a corner nicknack shop and went on to grow it into Bloomindale's.

  McCain needs to emphasize--as he already does--his down-hown, plain talking, common sense persona. In other words, he needs to be a 21st Century Harry Truman and paint Mr. Romney as a 21st Century Tom Dewey-Wall St.-aristocrat. Frankly, Mr. Romney does a pretty good job at that already.

  [Disclaimer: I neither support nor oppose either of these candidates. I just like to write, and wish them both the best.]

  Permalink Tuesday, January 29, 2008 08:50 PM