First Reviews

Tim Geithner's plan for toxic bank assets was revealed today and the stock market proceeded to jump nearly 500 points. It's still early, but this a very good sign that Wall Stret actually may be happy about something at long last. The Republicans are another matter, though: Eric Kantor quickly dismissed the the plan as nonsense. Those 500 points, however, out-weigh Mr. Kantor's petulance.

No Judging (Yet)

When Nixon visited China in his great breakthrough of 1972 he asked the elegant and sophisticated Foreign Minister, Chou En-lai, his opinion of the French Revolution (1789), Chou said it was too early to tell. Exactly the attitude President Obama and his Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, deserve from us. Two months in office doesn't ripple the surface of time. Even John McCain has come to Geithner's support saying, "Let him succeed." Obama says that if Tim wanted to resign today he would refuse to accept it.

I noticed how Barack Obama sat in the guest seat on Leno's show the other night: except for hand and arm gestures, his body was still and perfectly relaxed, as if he were in his own living room. If the President is calm in this storm, and believes Geithner is the right guy to be at his side, let's all pull back a bit and let them do their jobs. Are they on the right course? It's too soon to tell.

Bush 12, Nixon 6, U.S. 0

W will be paid $7 million for a book on his presidency and he wants to break from the convention of ex-presidents writing autobiographies (as if he could write one if his life depended on it) and instead concentrate on Decision Points--the working title--in his life. The L.A. Times says there are twelve of these and that he has already written 30,000 words about them. (Don't bother with the math of words-to-problem, there's no way of knowing how deeply into the dozen he may be by now.) All I can say about this is that I watched Will Farrell's You're Welcome, America the other night and if W gets anywhere near the truth of that, his book may be worth a read.

Nixon wrote his Six Crises the year after he lost to JFK and it was widely regarded as being little more than Tricky's self-centered view of his difficult life. And truth was the last thing on his mind--maybe Frank Langella in Nixon/Frost or Anthony Hopkins in Nixon are the better guides here.

Let's look up at our big tote board, shall we?: 2 presidents, 13 years in office, 18 reasons they each should have stayed home. Final score: Republican hacks 18, American people 0.

Lincoln-guilt

Lincoln-guilt has symptoms including the following: entering Barnes & Noble, spotting a huge new biography of Abe and, believing it is your civic duty to read it and somehow get closer to the great man, coughing up $30 or more. I have done this repeatedly since I was twelve years-old and now have many excellent Lincoln books partly read or unstarted but holding places of great honor in my book shelves. This year is the 200th anniversary of his birth and new books on every conceivable facet of his life have been appearing every other day. Book store visits have, therefore, become hell on earth as I try to make my life more manageable and be satisfied with the archive I've already got.

Salvation came yesterday in Abraham Lincoln, a 64-page brand new bio by James McPherson, an esteemed Civil War scholar who wanted to show that a very short but thorough book on Lincoln could be produced. I was impressed by all the blurbs on the back cover written by names with whom I am very familiar--they are the authors of all those big books at home--and by the price--thirteen bucks. This is a book to be read in one sitting, any day now.

Heresies On St. Pat's Day

What the hell--why not?

Heresy #1. The Pope is losing it. The air of rot and exhaustion we know well from the last Bush years now emanates from the Vatican. The Bishop Williamson affair (he is Holocaust-denying reactionary), the excommunication in Brazil of doctors and a mother for aborting the pregnancy for twins of a 9 year-old raped by her father (even a high ranking Vatican bishop has a problem with that; where was mercy, he asks), and today the Pope in Africa condemning condom use in a land where AIDS has long been an epidemic--all these show a Church without a clue as to what its own people want and will accept.

John Paul II was a great historical figure whose presence kept the lid on many pressure points, but this current Pope is no where near as strong and the band-aids placed on several major wounds over the years are
beginning to snap off. There will be more problems ahead, in fact they will be ceaseless until the Church finally shakes itself free from the dead hand of compromise and corruption.

Heresy #2. More of a question. Is Bernie Madoff in the secret employ of some county's intelligence agencies? Colonel Pat Lang, a retired U.S. Army intelligence pro, asked this the other day on his blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis. Madoff's silence and guilty plea to avert a trial have me relecting on the kinds of people who value--demand--that omerta: organized crime and spy agencies. I doubt that Bernie is mobbed-up but perhaps he is spooked-up. Where did all that money go? $65 billion--who might have a need for that kind of money and, at the same time, keep it off official books? Who runs Bernie? Mossad, CIA?

FDR's Slogan

So many people are comparing the present economic crisis to the 1930's and wondering if Barack Obama's first 100 days will be at all like Franklin Roosevelt's. I like Obama's even keel and I think in the years ahead it may be vital to our well-being; his refusal to lose his head may be our ace in the hole while all around him others are losing their's. He balances the grim with a sense of play and detachment. He is a writer and a great orator and his love of language is obvious. I wonder what maxims and quotations give him the greatest solace. He could not go wrong remembering the slogan FDR, in a wheelchair facing the Great Depression and World War II, kept on his desk, "Let unconquerable gladness dwell."

AIG

AIG says it must pay huge bonuses to their highly talented money and investment people or these geniuses would be offended and go work for some other monster company. Aren't these the same guys who virtually destroyed AIG and left it begging for money belonging to the American people just to stay alive? These are the people the company is so desperate to keep? I say let them go now and hire a new crew, there will be no lack of aspirants for these jobs.

Can Obama use this moment to bash the big, dumb, and rich corporate world as JFK did in 1962 when he wrestled Big Steel to the ground over price increases? This is one of those moments a President can use to his own lasting advantage. Strike them now, Mr. President!

Race To the Bottom

Which will be the first to finally bottom out and begin to shed itself of the dreck and the dross of it's corruption--the Republican Party or the New York Stock Exchange? We follow their respective descents daily, measured in numbers, just as one scans football scores and division standings on autumn Sundays. The Limbaugh-Steele game seems to signal an approaching end to the GOP drama (or can it go lower?), but Wall Street is forever inscrutable--ups mixed with downs, while the Republicans have no ups whatsoever.

The Republican base are true believers and will go down with the ship if necessary, Big Money is wiley and has no scruples, it goes down with no one's ship and could hitch it's wagon to Obama's Democrats if they are the long term winners here. Eric Cantor and Adam Putnam are smart young guys and must know that they have to bump off Boehner in the GOP House leadership before any party rebuilding can start. As for smart young Republicans in the Senate, well, the last one was considered--by some--to be Rick Santorum, and he was soundly defeated by Democrat Bob Casey fours years ago. So the GOP Senate fall has no end in sight and they are no where near as clever as the Wall Street guys.