Irresistible Impulses
The right wing has been painting itself into every corner in the room lately. The Midas touch many felt they displayed prior to the last election seems to have become a sadiM touch – Midas in reverse – with everything they handle becoming a color decidedly different from gold. We can go right down the list. First there’s Social Security, the issue our President thought he had enough political capital to zip through Congress with the same alacrity as his tax cut and benefit expansion “victories” of the last term. Now, every time Bush opens his mouth on the topic his numbers fall further. Perhaps he should try the same pitch in backwards English! Iraq certainly hasn’t been on a roll, unless one is talking about rolling downhill. The best face they can put on it (the “lipstick on the pig” as we are wont to say in my profession) is that it’s about the same as last year (dozens of billions of dollars later). And that was said before the latest spate of violence. Then consider recent pronouncements on gas prices and “energy strategy” (I’m sure it’s been a surprise for Clinton and Bush’s Dad to hear that they didn’t have an energy strategy!) From accelerated slurping that won’t deliver any actual gas for a decade, to handholding strolls with a Saudi prince, to his proposed Jerseyfication all the states with former military bases (i.e., all of them), the Bush Administration is clearly flailing. The list of missteps goes on to include predictably stalled in your face re-nominations of extremists, and, my personal favorite, ethical foot-shooting on a grand scale. I happen to believe that there is a pattern to all of this, and it explains lots. Here is the pattern: this is a group with a big impulse control problem! When they get an idea in their head, they feel that they just have to go full bore. It’s clear they see thinking through the likely consequences as Liberal behavior, in other words, behavior that’s suspect for being reality-based rather than faith-based. This trait actually worked for them for awhile. After the 9/11 attacks voters mistook lack of impulse control for decisiveness, considering how hungry the country was for decisive leadership (the kind not shown by a President caught like a deer in the headlights reading My Pet Goat while the country was under attack). It’s a manifestation of the larger problem with the extreme right wing – they seem to have an amazing blind spot when it comes to thinking through the simplest outcomes, if those outcomes occur over years as opposed to weeks. The big question is when voters will figure out that having an impulse control problem is not the same as decisiveness or strength of character. Or maybe they already are.
04.30.05 @ 09:37 PM EDT [link]

Feature of the Week
This is the 500th entry to this journal, so let’s start by putting the weekly spotlight on it. I spent a good amount of time over the week on cleanup. For example, SherWright.com over the last two years experimented with the reader feedback capabilities of the blog tool. What I and the rest of the blogger community have discovered is that you have to careful about open comment links not under active review every day. Out of 500 entries I found two, open primarily because they were linked into topic arcs from the left and right navigation areas. If any of this site’s beloved readers were exposed to the online gaming links stuck into these open comments, please be assured that they were not sponsored by SherWright.com, which does not accept renumeration from Bush Administration Agencies or any other sources! There was also some miscellaneous topic arc cleanup needed, which is now all done. Finally, the endearing travails of GOP operative hopeful Sue Lurp are now a permanent fixture of the environmental topic arc. Have a great weekend!
04.29.05 @ 10:28 PM EDT [link]

What’s Wrong With This Picture?
Picture this – a lobbying organization called FBC – Federal Bench to Conservatives - is formed to push installation of right-wing operatives onto the Federal Judiciary. It attracts millions of dollars in contributions. It hires a full-time professional staff and gives them hefty perks like homes and cars. It builds a modern facility expansive enough to hold thousands at a time. It employs advanced multi-media technology to enable national simulcasts. With this infrastructure in place, it launches a massive campaign to influence lawmakers, who are only too happy to get the publicity. They know it will translate directly to campaign contributions. Then let’s say that this lobbying organization applies for federal subsidies, and succeeds in getting them! Every dollar donated by right wing zealots is a dollar the zealots can use to reduce their taxable income. With the budget in deficit, this means that every American taxpayer will be paying interest on the lost revenues from these deductions as long as their portion of the extra debt is outstanding (in other words, for the rest of their lives). If you are like me, you see something wrong with this picture! Isn’t it the law that contributions to lobbies aren’t tax deductible? (That’s a rhetorical question. They aren’t). Yet most readers of this journal likely saw this very picture within the last week. It was the picture put out over the newswires of the event in Louisville that attacked the filibuster as being deployed against “people of faith.” The picture I saw showed Dr. Senator Frist on big video monitors addressing the rapt throng. The only difference (a difference subtle enough not to be readily apparent from the picture) was that the sponsoring organization, FBC, isn’t really named “Federal Bench to Conservatives.” Its real name is “First Baptist Church.” Here’s my take on this issue. Allowing churches to act like lobbies forces all Americans to subsidize their efforts to criminalize non-conformance to their particular interpretations of scripture. Being tax exempt and indeed tax subsidized gives them a tremendous competitive advantage over legitimately registered political advocacy organizations. If a church feels strongly enough about an issue to feel compelled to act like a lobby, they’re free to do so. They should just expect to give up their tax deductible status. That’s not “war on religion,” its enforcing the law, something they claim to support. I wonder if the “absolute moral imperative” they purport to feel on these issues would survive the loss of a huge percentage of their members to churches that chose to remain deductible? That’s another rhetorical question, BTW.
04.28.05 @ 08:02 PM EDT [link]

Competing on Steroids
This is a baseball story. There were two teams locked in a vigorous rivalry for over a hundred years. For most of that time it was a one-way rivalry – the perennial underdogs went year after year with seemingly no hope of ever prevailing. In desperation the owner cast about for someone, anyone, who could turn the tide. A hungry new manager was installed with a unique formula for success. Literally a formula. His idea was to leverage a recently discovered substance that phenomenally increased muscle mass and strength. While it had some unfortunate long-term side-effects, he knew his players were so desperate to win that they would do Whatever It Took to accomplish this, hang the consequences. The impact was immediate. Batters started blasting pitches out of the park, and fans responded with delirious joy. Attendance hit all time highs, and soon they had completely turned the tables on their rivals. Enthusiasm reached such a fever pitch that the team was able to present their chemical edge as a source of pride, a badge of old-fashioned American ingenuity. Fans saw achieving the right mix of performance-enhancing drugs as evidence of competitive and even moral superiority. This obviously presented the opposing manager with a difficult conundrum. Should he follow suit in juicing up his players, thus getting back into the game? Or should he stand on principles and likely lose? He ultimately decided that he loved his players and the game - and respected his fans – too much. The team still had enough skill and dedication to remain competitive, even twice winning the Series against its rival. Still, many in baseball – sportswriters and fans alike – loudly proclaimed that he made a foolish choice and pronounced the team to be in disarray. Actually, this isn’t a baseball story – it’s a brief history of American politics since 1980. It is the conundrum faced by Democrats over the two and a half decades since the Republicans first became addicted to political steroids. How better to describe advocacy of irresponsible, unsustainable policies that nevertheless provide an immediate rush of short term energy and strength to delight voters? At this point the GOP brand is permanently linked to massive deficit spending fueled by ever larger tax cuts and spending increases, and to environmental denial that offers accelerated slurping as some kind of solution to the problem of finite quantities of the fossil fuels to which American society is itself hopelessly addicted. What’s the answer? Maybe our baseball analogy can provide some insight. If fans refuse to watch chemical ball for moral reasons, chemical ball will stop. If voters refuse to tolerate political steroids for moral reasons, unsustainable practices will end up “on the dust bin of history” where they belong. And at that point we can start working down the debt.
04.27.05 @ 08:19 PM EDT [link]

Republican Wins Oil Guzzling Contest
Here’s an actual news story:
California Olive Oil News. A Publication of The Olive Oil, Volume 2 Issue 6, June 1999.
Winery Fetes Olive Oil Festival Events
“Glen Ellen - On May 15 olive oil producers met a crowd of enthusiasts eager to taste this season's oils. About 15 producers laid out their wares in a grassy field under a canopy of old growth Picholine olive trees. Oil was available for tasting and purchase. The day was punctuated by cooking and olive pressing demonstrations.”
Following is the TV coverage of one additional event at the oil festival. This new event never actually happened, but can’t you just picture it?
“Now we go to Alicia D’Addio at the Olive Oil Festival.”
“Thanks, Bill. We’re here at the annual Sonoma County Olive Oil Festival talking with the winner of the oil guzzling contest, Sue Lurp. Sue was not only the winner, she guzzled twice as much as any other contestant! Sue, you certainly seemed motivated to win.”
“That’s right, Alicia. I hope to be the Republican nominee from this congressional district next year, so I took this opportunity to use the event to underscore the urgent need to ensure we are tapping every available domestic oil resource, starting with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s a crime that during these tough economic times there are enormous stocks of petroleum just sitting there in the ground. Oil in the ground doesn’t do us any good, Alicia. Think of all the jobs we could create by accelerating production of all known domestic reserves into right now!”
“When I heard about this event, I knew it was the opportunity we’ve been looking for down at Party Headquarters to make the public more aware of this pressing issue. Pun intended, ha-ha! We got the idea from President Bush, who as you know is always very effective in getting his vision across by using symbolic backdrops. I still get goose bumps thinking about that speech he gave on taking full advantage of our God-given natural resources. Having that old-growth forest in the background, the ultimate symbol of squandered economic opportunity, really hit home.”
“That’s great, Sue. So tell me… Uh, are you OK, Sue?”
Sue has turned away and is moving in a hurried shambling gait towards the row of Port-a-Potties behind them. “Could you please excuse me, Alicia?” she calls back over her shoulder
“I guess it’s back to you, Bill.”
“Thanks, Alicia. It’s great to see someone who’s really willing to stand up for her beliefs!”
“That’s true, Bill, but I think she’s actually sitting down for her beliefs right about now!”
“Good one, Alicia! This is Bill Reeder from Sonoma County Fox News. ‘If there’s a Right Wing angle we’ll find it.’ And now these messages…”
04.25.05 @ 07:54 PM EDT [link]

A Bipartisan Solution to Social Security
First, if anyone thinks this is going to be one of those tiresome serious entries, you can be assured that there is indeed a punch line. Today’s topic was inspired by a letter to the editor in the local paper (the one I get in addition to the NY Times). The reader admired the President for attempting to tackle the problems of Social Security, but had concerns about market volatility. Her solution? “Treasury Bonds are better.” My suggestion is that the Democratic leadership go to the President with the following proposal: “Mr. President, we suggest a compromise solution to the issues with Social Security that you’ve courageously surfaced. We have decided to go along with each individual worker have an established account with the Social Security Administration that personally track the payments each individual makes into the system. But rather than having Social Security money go to heirs, we offer a compromise in exchange for our support: use the money saved by not paying heirs to continue benefit payments beyond the point that the individual’s payments would have exceeded their payments into the system. Workers will doubtless appreciate the extra security, and it avoids the problem of the oldest, most vulnerable seniors becoming destitute as their working-career payments into the system are exhausted. Also, to address the concerns that so many citizens have with the stock market, we propose an alternative investment: US Treasury Bills, an investment vehicle employed by every financial institution.” I’m guessing that Bush would jump at the compromise, considering that it’s become clear that any successful plan must have bipartisan support. Happy ending, right? There is one other benefit, a benefit from the ease of implementing the proposed approach. It’s easily to implement because the proposal as described is exactly how Social Security already works!
04.24.05 @ 08:08 PM EDT [link]