The No Voter Left Behind Quiz

Presidential “hopeful” John McCain insists none of his colleagues would confuse him with Miss Congeniality. But if the truth be told, the vitriolic voters mouthing off at McCain’s campaign rallies could make the late Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley, seem like Miss Manners in comparison. In order to alleviate extreme voter ignorance and anger, Congress has passed emergency education measures designed to enlighten the America’s dimmest citizens. Take the test now to ensure your political IQ is up to snuff.

1). Barack Obama hails from which foreign country?

a) Barackistan
b) Guantanamo
c) Hawaii
d) Iraq

The correct answer is C. Technically, Hawaii is sovereign U.S. territory, but you need a passport to get there and most real Americans do not have passports. The discerning reader will note that Iraq is de facto America’s 51st state. Of course, Guantanomo both is and isn’t U.S. territory at the same time, so this was a trick question. Deduct 15 points only if you picked A.

2). Barack Obama will _____ if he’s elected.

a) Raise your taxes to pay for the Bush deficits.
b) Convert America to Islam.
c) Take away your God given right to own the assault weapon of your choice.
d) Institutes educational reform which scraps silly multiple choice tests that emphasize rote learning.

The correct answer, Allah be praised, is D. If you answered C please multiply the number of assault weapons you own by 5 and deduct the answer accordingly. If you answered A, then deduct 500 points and please send a check covering your final point total to the address below.

3). Sarah Palin’s plan to solve America’s energy crisis and climate change can be summed up with which slogan?

a) “We hockey moms are pit bulls with lipstick.”
b) “Say it ain’t so Joe. There you go again”
c) “Drill, baby, drill!”
d) “Our opponents want to raise the white flag of surrender.”

The correct answer in C. What distinguishes this platitude from the other cliches is that it is actually about energy. If you had trouble with this section I suggest you brush up on your banalities. Joe six-packs that got this question wrong should deduct 2 points for every beer you normally consume for breakfast on Election Day (2 x 24 = 48). Hockey moms who got this question wrong should deduct one point for every month your youngest daughter is pregnant out of wedlock.

4) John McCain’s plans on appointing ______ as Treasury Secretary in order to get America back on track.

a) Meg Whitman – the former CEO has a great plan to auction derivatives and credit default swaps on Ebay, which would allow individuals to get a better deal on the toxic mortgages than if the government bought them wholesale on behalf of all taxpayers.
b) Phil Gramm – This is the guy who astutely observed we Americans are in a mental recession. $700 billion in free therapy with Dr. Phil sounds just like what the doctor ordered to cure a nation of whiners.
c) Carla Fiorina – Former HP CEO managed to turn her company around. Unfortunately it was in the wrong direction, but her golden parachute was less obscene than many others were.

d) Joe the Plumber

e) None of the above

The correct answer is E. We hope. Deduct 2000 Dow Jones points for answering A, 5000 points for B, and 3000 points for C. But you can bet the ranch that the economy will really go down the drain if McCain taps Roto Rooter Man, Joe Wurzelbacher, to be Treasury Secretary

5). George W. Bush’s most enduring legacy is likely to be?

a). He single-handedly ruined the Republican Party.
b). He discredited the idea of privatizing Social Security once and for all.
c). Americans will be forever indebted to Bush for his fiscal policies.
d). Succeeded in doing more damage to the United States than Osama bin Laden.
f). All of the above

The correct answer is F, which as it happens is the grade History will give our 43rd president.

Sphere: Related Content

The Collapse of Bush's Market Fundamentalism

George W. Bush’s reputation is sinking deeper than the Dow Jones, which says a lot considering the fact that stock market wealth is vanishing faster today than John McCain’s chances of winning a third Bush term.

Eight years of Republican misrule are coming to an end, big time. The causes of the current economic collapse are myriad, but they were predictable consequences of unwise, unsustainable, and unjust GOP policies. To begin with, the myth of the all-wise marketplace is now deader than Karl Marx’s corpse. Secondly, laissez-faire economics, deregulation, and the simplistic notion than “government is part of the problem” stand revealed as an axis-of-idiotic ideological assumptions. And thirdly, the massive financial bailout plan aimed at preventing a complete economic meltdown proves that capitalism, left to its own devices, entails socialism for the rich.

Years ago, Warren Buffet warned that the United States was well on its way to becoming a nation of sharecroppers. As the billionaire noted, a nation cannot continue to consume more than it produces indefinitely. Dick Cheney, who insisted that Ronald Reagan had proved that “deficits don’t matter,” contradicted Buffet’s common sense. As far as the VP was concerned, America could borrow money from the Chinese to purchase Arab oil without diminishing America’s economic position.

The Bush administration also financed the war in Iraq and its massive tax cuts with borrowed money. Supply-side economics is supposed to pay for itself – just as the Iraq War was supposed to be self-financing – but all taxpayers have for their “investments” so far is a sea of red ink, and blood.

Deficit spending is not bad per se. Borrowing money to invest in public education, universal healthcare, and infrastructure improvements will pay dividends in terms of restoring America’s competitiveness. As historian Arnold Toynbee observed, civilizations that reform themselves are more likely to prosper. On the other hand, those that seek to reform the rest of the world invariably exhaust themselves in the process.

The architects of America’s “shock and awe” campaign have transformed the U.S. model into an object of fear and loathing. The Iraq War, Katrina, and now the implosion of America’s financial institutions have decimated our image in the eyes of world opinion. Eight years ago the Neoconservatives that hijacked the Bush administration proclaimed that the American system of democratic capitalism was the end point of history for all humankind. Today, neither our global adversaries nor our allies view the American model as capable of delivering social justice, economic stability, or the good life.

We have reached this stage of national senescence due to a mixture of imperial hubris, intellectual sloth, moral turpitude, economic shortsightedness, and political cowardice. President Bush has laid the blame for the current financial calamity on the financial sector –“Wall Street got drunk” – and on subprime mortgages that went bad. But these factors are only part of the story. The truth is that for the past thirty years United States has followed a pattern eerily similar to the Spanish Empire’s downfall under Phillip II. In a nutshell, the financialization of Spain’s economy, expensive imperial/military expeditions that failed to pay for themselves, and the erosion of the manufacturing sector bankrupted the empire.

America’s free market fundamentalists insisted that the invisible hand of the market place would cure all national and economic ills. Deregulation was their mantra. In particular, the market fundamentalists argued that government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers. The problem with this, of course, is now obvious. As economist James K. Galbraith observes, markets are incapable of long-term planning. Deregulation unleashed predatory practices that privatized profits and socialized risk. And a dysfunctional relationship between politicians clamoring for campaign donations and corporate executives pushing for even less regulation created a vicious cycle that reinforced the self-interest of the few at the expense of the public good.

Renewing America – and the American idea – will necessitate rejecting the reigning Republican ideology in favor of a new social compact that rejuvenates the liberal ideals that proved so effective in rescuing America from the excesses of the Gilded Age that brought on the Great Depression. Tailoring liberal values to meet the challenges of the 21st century will be a tall order, but the principles are easy enough to articulate. First, as F.D.R. noted more than sixty years ago, “we are all in this together.” This is self-evident, and the current crisis illustrates this only too well; if Wall Street doesn’t get its bailout, then Main Street will sink too. We would do far better, of course, recognizing this up front by investing taxpayer dollars in universal healthcare, public works, and far-sighted economic initiatives (as opposed to funding bailouts for wealthy speculators).

To begin with, universal coverage is inherently more efficient because it eliminates vast bureaucratic layers that do not provide patient care. To put it bluntly, private health insurers spend at least a third of their revenue on overhead designed specifically to deny health coverage. Additionally, universal coverage will allow U.S. businesses to shed the substantial cost of insuring employees, which will make them far more competitive in a global environment.

Treating healthcare as a commodity is inimical to human dignity. Likewise, CEOs making 350 times what their employees earn is inimical to democracy, sound business practices, and ultimately the dignity of work. Put simply, lionizing CEOs who garner huge bonuses by sending jobs overseas and slashing workers is perverse, especially when ponders how often such executives end up running their companies into the ground.

Vast income inequality invariably leads to what Plato once called the worst catastrophe of all, a society divided against itself. Bolstering the minimum wage and setting limits on executive compensation can help restore a dignity of work climate (as opposed to the vanity of wealth climate we have now). Further, contrary to free market fundamentalism, government should and must partner with the private sector to map out strategic economic goals for the nation. The Internet, for instance, began as a government initiative. Only government has the long-term vision and resources to shape the marketplace in ways conducive to achieving national goals. Market fundamentalists have contented that government should not be in the business of picking winners and loser, but their simpleminded ideology has led to the perverse outcome where the government is bailing out losers after the fact, rather than grooming industries and technologies that fit with our national objectives.

Clearly, the United States needs to develop the alternative fuels and energy savings technologies of the future, both to lessen our dependence on foreign sources of oil and also to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. If the U.S. government doesn’t take the lead in this endeavor, then American consumers will continue to transfer vast sums of our dwindling national wealth to adversarial regimes. Meanwhile, the challenges associated with global warming will mount.

The Bush administration has decimated America’s fortunes because it clung to a bankrupt ideology. When disaster struck, Bush didn’t ask Americans to sacrifice. Instead, he told them to shop. Market fundamentalism is not just economically unsound; it is morally bankrupt. A liberal political philosophy helped America rise following the Great Depression. It can do so again because it recognizes markets are imperfect institutions meant to serve individual and communities, as opposed to gods who demand our blind faith.

Sphere: Related Content

McCain vs. Obama: Strategy vs. Tactics


President Bush insists that the United States has a strategy to defeat terrorism. Most counter terrorism experts, however, have concluded that Bush’s strategy is incoherent or counterproductive. In simple terms, Bush’s strategic vision rests on the following assumptions: (1) undemocratic regimes spawn terrorism because they stifle economic, political, and religious freedoms. (2) Repression breeds violence and resentment, which tends to be aimed at peaceful and successful democracies. (3) Therefore, spreading liberty is best long-term antidote to reducing and eliminating the animus that gives rise to terrorism.

Helping Iraq make the transition from dictatorship into a democracy is, in Bush’s view, the catalyst necessary to transform the entire Middle East. It’s an appealing notion – and it is not without some merit – but it is a dangerously simplistic approach to a very complex challenge. Put simply, Bush fails to understand is that terrorism is the flip side of globalization, a movement where individuals and small groups are gaining power at the expense of nation states. In the past, when non-state actors had grievances their means for wrecking havoc were limited. But now, thanks to the information revolution, disaffected entities are rapidly gaining access the most destructive technologies. It is probably only a matter of time before fringe elements acquire WMD.

America’s homegrown terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, was a product of a prosperous democracy. Similarly, the perpetrators of Columbine style mass shootings invariably hail from the freest of free societies. Spreading democracy will in no way diminish the murderous madness of demented loners, irrational cults, and other fringe elements.

Nevertheless, Bush insists that winning in Iraq will deflate the terrorists, by which he means al-Qaeda. The resurgence of al-Qaeda in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan contradicts the president’s claims. The United States may well prevail in Iraq (by achieving a tolerable outcome), but this “success” will be offset by setbacks in Pakistan and elsewhere.

At best, Iraq is looking like a tactical success, but a strategic debacle. In chess, it doesn’t matter how many pieces you win if you can’t protect your king. Similarly, winning in Iraq means virtually nothing when one appreciates that the United States under the Bush administration has lost its moral authority, it’s financial health, and its role as a global leader. The United States is a vastly weaker country because it invaded Iraq.

This brings me to the point in the first McCain/Obama debate, where the senator from Arizona accused his opponent of failing to understand the difference between tactics and strategy. If anything, the lesson of distinguishing tactics from strategy appears to be lost on McCain, in so far as he views Iraq as the make or break issue for the United States. We can continue to spend $10 billion dollars a week in Iraq – so long as the Chinese and other foreign creditors continue to lend us the money – while our own infrastructure crumbles and our healthcare system collapses. But the tradeoffs of remaining in Iraq are becoming more and more apparent.

At the end of the First World War, Germany won a series of tactical battles that actually undermined their military’s strategic position. The German public could hardly believe that their heroic victories were for naught. We may be in for a similarly bitter lesson. Those who fail to have a sound strategy, and those who elevate tactics above strategy, usually defeat themselves.

Sphere: Related Content