The Death of Michael Jackson and the Demise of Sarah Palin (and what it all means for America)

Few individuals are weirder than the late Michael Jackson, but Sarah Palin comes mighty close. The former Republican VP candidate shocked the political world by announcing that she is resigning her Alaska governorship. True to form, her quirky, unscripted, and incoherent news conference performance left nearly everyone scratching their heads. Palin’s surprise resignation, however, caps a great week for Democrats; Al Franken is finally declared the winner in Minnesota’s senate race, Republican governor Mark Sanford derails his presidential ambitions by admitting to infidelity, and Sarah Palin zany rationale for quitting her post reinforces the perception that the GOP is fatally unhinged. In truth, the Republican Party has even less of a pulse than Michael Jackson, who at least has the chance of making a posthumous comeback.

Sarah Palin’s rationale for leaving office is about as convincing as Dick Cheney’s defense of water boarding. In fact, Palin displayed a smorgasbord of verbal and emotional tics during her news conference that are symptomatic of the GOP’s decline. For example, the Alaska governor seemed constitutionally incapable of stringing together coherent thoughts and arguments, but she had no trouble spouting a train of mind-numbing clichés to explain her decision. She didn’t want to be a “lame duck” and “collect a paycheck” and “kind of milk it.” No, Palin isn’t one “to go with the flow” because “only dead fish go with the flow.” Sarah “Barracuda” Palin is a self-described maverick, but her thought processes seem composed from a string of lifeless banalities and worn out clichés.

There is also an eerie dissonance between the chirpy cheeriness she tries to project and the anxiety and unease betrayed by her body language. Bush displayed a similar incongruity; the exaggerated macho swagger of a bully compensating for his obvious sense of inadequacy. Incidentally, watch just about any of clip of Bush from several years back and I bet you’ll be struck by how fake he comes across. It’s not only the chasm between his words and reality that alarm, Bush’s body language, tone, and demeanor betray disingenuousness.

Palin tried to sell her departure as a selfless act done for the good of Alaskans and the Republican Party. But her strained explanation and incongruous delivery appear to be masking a truth she cannot admit. She strikes me – and apparently many others – as a quintessential narcissist. That is, she has a grandiose sense of self coupled with an inability to accept criticism, acknowledge mistakes, or empathize with others. Do these qualities remind you of another recent Republican leader? (Hint, think flight suit, bring em’ on, and the guy strumming a guitar while New Orleans drowned).

In fact, conservatives have extolled and exemplified a national form of narcissism for some time. This vanity was enshrined in the Bush Doctrine: The United States represents the culmination of human history, is utterly unique, and is charged with a messianic mission to spread liberty all across the globe. As far as the neocons were concerned, our system of democratic capitalism was supposed to the model for all peoples at all times. The rise of China and the near meltdown of America’s financial system have gone a long way to puncture that conceit.

The conservative disdain for the notion that empathy is a desirable quality in judges fits with this pattern of narcissism. Along these lines, Sarah Palin disparaged Barack Obama’s efforts as a community organizer; ridicule being the polar opposite of empathy. Think of a national Republican leader – Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter come to mind – and the last quality you will think of is empathy. Sarah Palin is merely a symptom of cultural malady that is afflicting a conservative movement that is in the process of self-destruction. There is a psychological law at work here; those with an inflated sense tend to destroy themselves and everything they touch. Tragically, this was the fate of Michael Jackson, but at least he possessed the talent to create a legacy that will survive him. George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, on the other hand, are the type that tends to leave a trail of disappointment and destruction in their wake.

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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.

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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.

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Bush and Crimes Against Humanity

The trajectories of George W. Bush and Al Gore since the fateful election in 2000 could hardly be more divergent. The once highflying Bush has tumbled from the sky like a dodo while Gore has risen from the ashes like a phoenix. Tragically, America’s fortunes have been hitched to the incompetent bungling Bush who has single-handedly managed to destroy America’s reputation, moral character, financial health, and military preparedness.

Bush, of course, still clings to the delusion that his presidency and the decision to invade Iraq will be vindicated by posterity. It is worth noting, in this vein, that Reich Marshall Hermann Goring once boasted that future generations would honor him and his fellow henchmen with monuments. Needless to say, Goring’s predictions regarding his future place in history have proven every bit as empty as the Nazis’ wartime propaganda.

The Bush administration and its league of apologists in the media have generally scoffed at any suggestion that the president and his aides might guilty of war crimes, but a growing body of evidence indicates that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, and David Addington knowingly sanctioned torture and other abuses that amounted to same kind of gross violations of the Geneva Conventions that leading Nazis were prosecuted for at the Nuremberg Trials. Put simply, the concept of “command responsibility,” which implicitly recognizes that political and military leaders are responsible for the moral tone that is set within the chain of command, directly implicates the Bush White House to some of the most heinous human rights violations ever committed in our nation’s history.

“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” That’s the dispiriting conclusion of Major General Antonio Taguba (Ret.) in his preface to a report issued by Physicians for Human Rights.

Bush’s decision to scrap the Geneva Conventions is not just immoral; it’s self-defeating and stupid. Innocent individuals have been incarcerated and tortured without due process, which has sullied the image of the United States. And at least one false confession – a subject who told interrogators what they wanted to hear, namely that Saddam possessed WMD – helped mislead America into the Iraq War. The Bush administration claims (without evidence) that waterboarding has saved lives, but most counter terrorism experts agree that coerced confessions are inherently unreliable.

The Supreme Court has finally – and repeatedly – slapped down the Bush administration’s legal rationales for denying enemy combatants even a modicum of legal safeguards. The next president, whether it is John McCain or Barack Obama, will represent a repudiation of the moral vacuity the Bush administration has displayed in regards to detainees. There is no doubt that Bush and Cheney have undermined the values they purport to defend. Their contorted logic and reasoning for denying terror suspects even a minimum of legal rights has not only made a mockery of the rule of law, it shocked the conscience of the world. The magnitude of Bush’s failures, however, extends to nearly every aspect of our national life: the reckless invasion of Iraq, the incompetence of Katrina, the failure to do anything about global warming and America’s crumbling infrastructure, and the administration’s fiscal irresponsibility. A staggering 84% of the public now agrees that the Bush administration has taken the country in the wrong direction. Historians will likely be even more scathing; most already concur that the Bush administration represents one of the lowest points in our Republic.

In 2000 the Supreme Court intervened to thwart a statewide recount in Florida. The Court’s reasoning was right out of Alice in Wonderland: there was not enough time for the recount to proceed, a fact the Court itself had made true by stopping the recount the day before. Justice delayed is justice denied. The verdict of history is taking shape: the Court didn’t just install the wrong man; the majority’s sophistic reasoning helped put in place a war criminal.

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Top Ten Ways Hillary Can Pander Her Way to the Presidency

10). Promise to give each and every American $1,500 gift card to use at the mall of their choice. Hey, if every American could afford to purchase a second or third giant screen TV it sure would help stimulate the economy. And who better than Hillary to get tough with the Arab oil sheiks in order to get them to lend us the money to finance this scheme.

9). Hey, if Hillary would promise to obliterate Crawford, Texas it sure would make up for her vote to give the warmonger George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

8). Offer raffle tickets to ordinary citizens where the prize is an overnight sleepover in the Lincoln bedroom. The prize should include quality time with Bill and other VIPs. Winners, of course, must be over 21.

7). Subsidize massive federal boondoggle to turn marijuana into cannabis-based ethanol. Hey, weed is already America’s #2 cash crop. Let’s see if we can get higher mileage with hybrid cars that run on fumes. This should solve global warming too. And it’s doubtful it will lead to more traffic accidents, assuming drivers don’t inhale.

6). Forget the gasoline tax holiday. Like a lot of Americans I consume a lot more alcohol than I do petrol. How about a tax holiday on Hillary’s favorite beverage, the boilermaker? I’ll drink to that.

5). Hey, if Bill can pardon billionaire fugitive Marc Rich, then why couldn’t Hillary pardon me for the $28,432 I owe in unpaid parking and traffic fees? A traffic infraction amnesty for all Americans is just what Hillary needs to propose to pick up some Red states.

4). Draft dodging chicken hawk Republicans have succeeded in Swift boating liberal war heroes for too long. Hillary should retroactively reinstate the draft for top government officials who used multiple deferments and the National Guard to avoid one senseless war when they were young only to start another when they were old. Let’s see how Dick Cheney and George Bush look in Kevlar helmets and body armor as they dodge IEDs, mortar rounds, and sniper fire in “Free Iraq.”

3). I’d vote for Hillary if the Clinton campaign would make “She’s so Cold” by the Rolling Stones her theme song. Hey, but if Obama should happen to get the nomination after all I’d love to hear “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” following Barack’s acceptance speech.

2). Hillary should pledge to appoint Al Gore as Chief Justice of the World Court responsible for investigating and prosecuting Crimes Against Humanity (including any and all high government officials who may have authorized torture, preemptive war, and election fraud). Let’s face it, I want to see the rightful winner of the 2000 election order Bush confined to a straightjacket while the disgraced ex-president undergoes a thorough psychiatric evaluation.

1). Hillary should promise to pick her vice-presidential running mate from a pool of contestants that face off on a popular reality-based TV show like “Survivor.” Contestants will have to compete in a series of silly tasks designed to reveal their capacity for ruthlessness, duplicity, and backstabbing. The contestant that would make the Clinton’s want to hire a food taster the most wins the second spot on the ticket.

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George W. Bush: The Most Unpopular President Ever?

George W. Bush is about as popular with the American people as an undertaker visiting a nursing home would be. Seventy-one percent of the public disapproves of Bush’s job performance, the highest negative rating ever. Not even Richard Nixon was so reviled.

By some estimates a million Iraqis have been killed since the war began, two-and-a-half million Iraqis have fled the country or been displaced, and virtually every expert agrees the invasion has enhanced the influence of America’s chief nemesis in the region, Iran.

The dollar is near an all-time low, gas prices are soaring, and the country is teetering on the brink of what some are predicting will be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Bush, however, is so clueless that he didn’t even seem to know – or care – when someone told him that gas would likely top $4 a gallon by this summer.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has described Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina as “disgraceful.” When you factor in the mortgage meltdown; the failure to find WMD in Iraq; the collapse of Bush’s efforts to privatize Social Security; the explosion of the deficit, the discrediting of the administration’s democratization agenda for Iraq; the setbacks in Afghanistan; the failure to catch bin Laden; and the precipitous decline in America’s power and prestige during Bush’s tenure . . . well it’s a no-brainer that George W. Bush has been a monumental failure. You might say that Dubya is kind of like Nero, but without the musical talent.

George Bush has decimated virtually everything he’s come in contact with: FEMA, the U.S. military, Iraq, the economy, and the Republican Party. But you can bet your retirement account and/or your economic future that Forty-Three earnestly believes he’s been doing a “heck of a job.”

Bush likes to claim that he’ll be vindicated by history. Many decades from now, Bush claims, historians will recognize he made the right choices, particularly in regards to his decision to invade Iraq. This is a facile, self-serving, and irresponsible way of looking at things. As chief weapons inspector Hans Blix noted, had Bush delayed his decision by as little as two weeks the world would have know with certainty that Saddam did not posses the dreaded WMD that were the casus belli of the invasion.

Certainly, from a military standpoint, it would be important to know that U.S. troops would not be facing chemical and biological weapons. Needless to say, this would have simplified the invasion, or perhaps made it unnecessary. But the Bush administration has invariably been hostile to evidence that contradicts its ideological convictions, as its foot-dragging approach to global warming demonstrates.

Bush could (and should) have fired the incompetent Donald Rumsfeld earlier. He should have set up a unified chain of command so that Paul Bremer wasn’t disbanding the Iraqi Army on his own. And he never should have allowed political loyalty to trump competence when it came to sending personnel to reconstruct Iraq. Put simply, it’s not just that the choices that Bush has made that have been disastrous, but rather that his entire ideological, managerial, and political style has engendered catastrophe at every step. George Bush, in short, has about as much chance as going down as a successful president as Britney Spears has of winning an Oscar.

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Barack Obama vs. The Axis of Idiots

Barack Obama is almost certainly the most substantive, intellectually impressive, and emotionally integrated figure on the American political scene today. His speech on race in America was far more than the typical self-serving political exercise most of us are accustomed to. Rather, it was a revelation into the character of a man who has a profound capacity to understand himself, his country, and the world in all its moral complexity. How refreshing to find someone so edifying and illuminating running for the White House following eight years of the obtuse self-certainty and inflexible mindlessness of George W. Bush.

What made Barack’s speech so impressive was his capacity to empathetically relate to the concerns whites and blacks, conservatives and liberals, and the rich and poor have. His aim was clearly to encourage greater dialogue, empathy, and to edify. His approach stands in stark contrast to a legion of self-serving politicians and pundits who have built their careers upon feeding the fear and anger of their audiences. Indeed, there is a herd of sophistic talk show hosts and cable celebrities -- Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Rich Lowry come to mind – who stuff their audiences with intellectual garbage the way visitors at a zoo might throw morsels of junk food at a gaggle of geese.

Barack Obama is equally perceptive on the subject of Iraq. Obama’s pragmatism, the cogency of his arguments, and his exceptional capacity to raise the level of discourse must terrify the purveyors of prejudice and irrationality. Put simply, a spokesperson for a progressive outlook as articulate as Obama has the potential to transform the political landscape in a way no American leader since F.D.R has. Thus, the right-wing hate machine is being set loose once again to do the only thing its good at: character assassination.

The Bush era conservatives have demonstrated they cannot govern, but their propaganda apparatus would make even Joseph Goebbels spin in his grave with envy. Six years into a disastrous war, and with the country facing possibly the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression, the professional slime-mongers on the right are bent on hanging comments by Obama’s pastor around the candidate’s neck. Obama has denounced the comments, but for shameless sophists guilt by association is a sure-fire way to clip the Democratic front-runner’s wings.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof correctly characterized called Obama’s speech thus: “It was not a sound bite, but a symphony.” Filtered, interpreted, and distorted by right-wing rage mongers, however, Obama’s speech is being dissected into snippets that present a completely misleading picture of Obama and his message. The agents of anger, ignorance, and arrogance have succeeded before in Swift-Boating Renaissance men like Al Gore and John Kerry. As a result, the country is stuck with a pre-Enlightenment President who has succeeded only in taking America back to the Dark Ages.

Obama faces a steep challenge. George W. Bush has demonstrated that even a bad argument aimed at the lowest common denominator has a good chance of succeeding if it is repeated often enough. The instruments that make up the right-wing echo chamber understand this. The weapons they wield are not truth or reason, but repetition and cliches. Obama’s candidacy really is different; it’s based on the premise that a leader can persuade the electorate by engaging them on a higher intellectual and emotional plane. That’s the audacity of hope we so desperately need.

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