Its a worn observation that on occasion people can learn more with their eyes shut but Ye Olde Bromide is warranted when the biology class doesn’t seem to be learning.
Right about now if I had my way I’d have our elected officials in Washington slow down and if that meant asking them to wear blindfolds or struggle through the service entrances of badly designed buildings while using wheelchairs so much the better. (I don’t believe in “Try Disability On for a Day” sensitivity exorcizes and I don’t favor disabling vengeance fantasies but if having to work with accommodations made the politicians have to think for themselves, well I’d be for it.)
Not long ago I told a friend who has deep pockets and a clear head that I felt President Obama’s job at hand is to prevent the United States from becoming a third world country. We weren’t having an argument but we were feeling around the issues–I was for the president’s economic stimulus plan and my friend had serious doubts about the enterprise. I said a third world nation was one where the government and the people were so entirely in debt to the rest of the world that they no longer had any say about how they could spend moneyor what crops they could grow. I think I also said something about crumbling roads and bridges.
The spectacle of last week’s televised capitol hill outrage over the AIG bonuses tells me that the legislature is going to be unable to dissect the frog. Every minute of every day that our leaders are not putting their full attention to restoring the flow of capital and creating a renewed climate for investment is time wasted and I think this country has very little time.
In my view the three most impressive politicians in the United States other than the president are Governor Schwarzeneggerof California, Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania, and Mayor Bloomberg of New York City all of whom insist that we must tackle the erosion of the nation’s infrastructure if we’re to have an economic future.
Still I couldn’t help but feel today as I watched these men on Meet the Press that despite their collective argument that serious investments in rebuilding the U.S. are critical to our survival our Senators and Representatives in Washington are not up to the job.
Thomas L. Friedman’s OpED column in today’s New York Times is incisive about the evident crisis in our political focus. I was hooked by his opening lines:
“I ran into an Indian businessman friend last week and he said something to me that really struck a chord: “This is the first time I’ve ever visited the United States when I feel like you’re acting like an immature democracy.””
To this Friedman adds:
“You know what he meant: We’re in a once-a-century financial crisis, and yet we’ve actually descended into politics worse than usual. There don’t seem to be any adults at the top — nobody acting larger than the moment, nobody being impelled by anything deeper than the last news cycle. Instead, Congress is slapping together punitive tax laws overnight like some Banana Republic, our president is getting in trouble cracking jokes on Jay Leno comparing his bowling skills to a Special Olympian, and the opposition party is behaving as if its only priority is to deflate President Obama’s popularity.”
Friedman goes on to say that the president missed a teaching moment last week by not having a fireside chat with the nation in which he would have shared with the country the full measure of our current economic crisis and I agree in part but I would add that no one knows the full dimensions of the crisis and in the absence of all the facts Barack Obama is not likely to risk looking like Jimmy Carter–that is, you can’t lead with merely the appearance of seriousness you have to have substantive policy at your fingertips.
I thought it was a good sign when Obama met with Governors Schwarzenegger, Rendell, and Mayor Bloomberg last week–I took this as the week’s most substantive story. And now in the spirit of Thomas Friedman’s advice it is time for the president to lead with what he knows. We’re in the fight of our lives.And yes we may have to throw more money at the banking and insurance systems before all is said and done. But we need to do this with a sense that every penny is accounted for, a matter that even revisionist types can’t take away from F.D.R.. Say what you will Americans didn’t lose money on the New Deal.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 