Whew. What a week. From financial crisis, to Obama's possible violation of the Logan Act, to Sarah Palin's email getting hacked (and since he was critical of it, Bill O'Reilly's website) to McCain calling for the scalp of Chris Cox of the SEC.
What is going on here?
Besides a heated and close election, it's a critical period of deciding who is going to lead the free world during a time of financial tsunamis, culture wars, and the constant threat of Islamofascism. Where do I start?
Let's start with the war, because it actually leads to Obama's scrape with what has been considered to be a long-time tradition of not interfering with the US government's ability to negotiate agreements with foreign powers.
The war in Iraq seems to winding down. Both parties seem to be admitting that, although the Democrats remain convinced that this war was not just a mistake but an act that put the country in bigger danger than it was. I don't intend to get into that issue, having covered it before. But it did lead to a meeting that Obama had with the foreign minister of Iraq during his trip in this summer that has led to a minor firestorm. Many Americans believe that the US news media has been openly slanting the news in favor of Obama over the last several months. Go back and read my last few posts on the polling data on that. It is the opinion of a large majority of Americans, even many of Obama's own supporters.
I guarantee you that if McCain had done this, you would never have heard the end of it. But since that is true of so many things at this point in the election, let's not waste our time.
Amir Taheri of the NY Post wrote an article stating that Obama had requested that the Iraqis hold off on completing their withdrawal agreement with the United States until after our elections had chosen a new president and a new Congress. Of course, Obama was expecting that the elections would produce a more Democratic Congress and a new Democratic president: Barack Obama. The Iraqis were understandibly taken aback by this interference in the negotiations by an opposition leader; this is the kind of brazen ploy you would expect from a banana republic, not the most powerful nation on earth. In case you think I am overstating the problem, and the tradition of non-interference in US foreign policy, please read this summary article by Taheri on the events and their meaning. More than anything, it communicates to many foreign leaders that Obama is...well...different. Perhaps he should have gotten better advice, since he is new at foreign policy, but it's not like his 300 advisors couldn't have caught him before he went overseas and said to him, "This trip is to listen, not to tell them what you want."
The Logan Act goes all the way back to the John Adams administration, and while the Obama campaign has forcefully argued that Obama was misinterpreted by Taheri...well, as you can see by the article, he claims he was only going by what Obama and foreign minister Zebari said about the meeting. This issue may come up in the debate this Friday in Mississippi, when foreign policy is supposed to be the main topic.
Let's address the financial crisis. This is an area where I have had some personal experience, having been involved in retail financial management before my career change into teaching. I strong urge you to read this succinct article by Jim Manzi in NRO. Forget that it is a conservative magazine, this guy understands the credit markets. This is, in the end, NOT a partisan issue, although it may be impossible for a while because of the campaign. But it IS about our financial survival as we try to dodge the iceberg looming in front of our ocean liner. Meanwhile, you can realistically expect both candidates to blame the party or backers of the other candidate. Which one will voters trust to handle this minefield?
Who is to blame? Frankly, I think it's the one entity that ALWAYS gets away with being complicit but never held responsible in this country: CONGRESS. They decided to allow the quasi-government lending authorities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the authority to basically lend mortgage money to borrower who past experience has shown are likely to be unable to repay the money. This article shows that the first big move in this direction goes all the way back to the Clinton years. And it was all to increase home ownership of a large voting population that generally votes Democratic. But Republicans went along because who wants to vote against minorities owning homes: are you a racist or something? If not, then VOTE FOR IT!!
It's much easier to blame a single person: the president, the speaker, a majority leader, than to blame 535 elected officials. But that is who makes the laws. These are the people who are fulfilling the prophecy of Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831. The Frenchman made a statement, in his brilliant analysis of the new republic,Democracy in America, when he said
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.
Of course, the New York Times suggests that President Bush is to blame. For once, the Washington Post disagrees, but then they have to find some way to be distinguishable from the Gray Lady from time to time. The blatant bias of the news media this year has been...historic. William Randolph Hearst, of "yellow journalism" fame, would be proud.
On the Palin email front...where are all the civil liberties groups and their outrage? The sound of crickets from the neighborhood of the ACLU and People for the American Way is deafening. Conservative women don't have rights...they can only be accused of violating them. Especially if they want someone fired who tasers a 11 year old child. I'm sure we'll get more breathless stories from the 30 odd muckrakers going through the Wasilla archives looking for more breaking stories about the governor's college transfers and her brother-in-law's scrapes with the law TWENTY YEARS AGO. Important information in these boring news days...
And what of McCain's call for the firing of SEC Chairman Chris Cox? Was he overreacting? Perhaps. This was not the time to put a new man in charge of the SEC when things are this tense. This faux pas rings of Obama's mistaken notion that the place to solve the Georgian crisis was the Security Council of the UN, where Russia has a veto and would certainly use it to kill any attempt to sanction Russia for it's invasion of the tiny former USSR republic. But considering that we may have only been hours away from a total financial meltdown on Thursday, perhaps his outrage that more oversight wasn't evident from the financial market's watchdog could be understandable. Senator Obama claimed that McCain "panicked", but then Obama's response on Friday was basically "I'll get back to you."
Finally, the guys who would like to kill all Americans were busy tonight. The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan was bombed. That is the picture you see at the top. Reports say they may have been after some high level CIA or US military personnel in the attack. Of course, you have to wonder who had the information as to the name and location of said US personnel. This week has certainly been a reminder of what a dangerous world it is; dangerous to your financial, moral, political, and physical health. The nation will be choosing the man responsible for protecting Americans in just 45 days.
Edit: If you think I am wrong about the war in Iraq having turned around, read this article this morning by this stunned reporter in the New York Times, of all places.
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