Last Call for '08

Pimp My Legacy

The latest to join the “redemption tour”, along with Bush, Cheney, and Rice, is the First Lady, who is vowing that history will vindicate all of her husband's actions over the past eight years. Well, since a sense of history has never been a strong suit in the Bush White House, I have to be skeptical... or, maybe she knows something we don't. One possibility is that, sooner or later, it will be revealed that the “Bush administration” was not George W. Bush's at all, thus freeing him from all blame. This would be like saying that what happened during his reign is not an idiot king's fault, but that of his regent. Certainly a possibility, except that American politics are not set up this way. If it happened while you were president, it was your fault – or it's to your credit, depending. And this applies to everything, including the weather, natural disasters, plagues, sunspots, supernovae, black holes -- you name it, thus reflecting the almost-universal American image (or is it wish?) of the president as all-powerful and able to perform miracles on a daily basis. They are even elected based on their perceived miracle-performing potential, as we have seen with Obama. This may be unrealistic but that's the way it is. And if there's anything American politicians and the media excel in, it's the “blame game”. So they wind up holding empty suits responsible for all sorts of catastrophes, because that's easier than trying to figure out who's really responsible, and why what happened happened, i.e. who benefited. A little bit of “cui bono” analysis would go a long way toward solving many of the “mysteries” of current events – you know, like, why wasn't the subprime mortgage meltdown anticipated and stopped years earlier. Stuff like that. Or, why are we still in Iraq when the effort has been, by and large, a failure and has bled our economy dry (even before the current crisis)? Just follow the money, folks. That and the lust for power. Whatever's left will fit into a thimble.

Hard-Hearted Katrina, the Vamp of New Orleans

As a countermelody to the “redemption tour”, we also have “some of Bush's closest advisors” saying that his administration's response (or non-response) to the Katrina disaster “marked a turning point” in the administration – which “entered a downward spiral” -- and that Bush's presidency “never recovered”. This is a different sort of excuse from the "redemption tour" version; this time it's along the lines of, if only it hadn't been for that mean old hurricane (plus, we know that the U.S. president controls the weather -- the global warming crusaders have told us so). Implication – everything was fine up to that point. Which is like saying that everyone thought Jimmy Carter was doing a great job until the “killer rabbit” incident. Well, sorry folks, but Bush was already marked for infamy long before Katrina dealt its wrath upon the Big Easy. At least one of the advisers in question has it right (maybe inadvertently) – he described Katrina as not only the “tipping point” but “the final nail in the coffin”. Right. You don't have a "tipping point" unless there's something ready to be tipped. And you don't have a “final nail” until you have (1) a coffin and (2) all the other nails already in place.

It is often pointed out that, all during the Katrina crisis, Bush acted as though he had nothing to do with it, and that he wasn't in charge. For once, he gave an honest impression – he _wasn't_ in charge, any more than he had been on 9-11, and any more than he's been at any time since. This may, in fact, be his only lasting legacy. Call him “The President Who Wasn't”.

Honey Baked Hamas

Well, Israel has come up with a nice going-away present for Bush – proof positive that all of his alleged efforts to achieve “a lasting peace” in that part of the Near East have been for naught. This quest has been a full-time job for Condoleezza Rice, for example... and what does she have to show for it? The fact is, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians want peace – that's for wimps! And quitters! Israel wants what they could have had in the first place, except for some unknown reason they held their punches – namely the total ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israeli territory (which includes – let's get real about this – the West Bank and Gaza). Maybe it was the Jews' recent experience with ethnic cleansing in Europe that gave them cold feet back in 1948. Heaven knows, they did their best... but for some reason, not only did many Palestinians remain in Israeli territory, but they continued to reproduce, and under the harshest of conditions. What sort of people would act that way? And yet they did.

And what do the Palestinians want? Simply to be left alone? Well, maybe some do. But let's admit that, for many if not most, the dream is to get rid of the Jews, and Israel, altogether. But the Palestinians have been every bit as hapless as the Arabs in general over the last few decades, and the probability of getting Israel out of their faces has dwindled to virtually zero – at least as long as Israel enjoys all the privileges of being the 51st state, with none of the responsibilities.

So the latest battle can be seen as just part of a long series – a new Hundred Years' War, if you will. But the timing is intriguing nonetheless. Is someone trying to tell Bush (as if anyone with a grain of sense would need to be told) that his net effect on Near East “peace” has been zip? Or... is someone trying to re-establish the “terms of reference” for the benefit of Obama and Co.? Said terms of reference being -- "we can do anything we please, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it (just keep the 'foreign aid' checks coming)." Is this, in fact, the start of that “test” that everyone's been talking about? The utter silence of the Obama camp regarding the Israel-Hamas-Gaza battle is instructive in this regard. It's like a college slacker who skips class on test day, hoping that somehow that will let him off the hook. But of course it only makes things worse, and postpones – only slightly – the day of reckoning.

Mad Money

The green-eyeshade guys are finally getting around to asking, and trying to figure out, where all the money went that Bernard Madoff conned out of his clients. This, of course, was the very first question I asked. I mean... yeah, estates and yachts and cars and so on can be expensive, but $50 Billion? Really. How can any human being spend that much on anything, even in many years' time? Maybe it's all piled up in a mile-high Scrooge McDuck-style money bin, complete with diving board. But if it is, said money bin has yet to be located. I guess they could try the Swiss banks. So far, a few clues have emerged as to where the money went, and some of it least – maybe a lot – was simply returned to investors. That's how a Ponzi scheme works; someone – the initial cohort at least – has to make money. So that money can hardly be called “lost”; at the most, it was more than the investors in question should have gotten back (but lots of luck trying to reclaim it). The portion that was used to buy property can be recovered to a considerable extent. The portion that was invested in stocks and other “instruments” that have gone belly-up in the meantime is, arguably, up in smoke. But no one has the faintest idea, as yet, how much went into each of these pots, or into other as-yet-named pots. And that too is the whole idea in a scheme like this – no tracks, no trace, no accountability. Gee, sort of reminds me of what the people who've gotten all the “bailout” money have done. They're not providing any accounting either. So... are they any better, ultimately, than Bernie Madoff? I'm afraid the answer is “no”. So does he get to sue for discrimination or unequal treatment? He ought to.

Smarts Like This, I Don't Need

And of course, among the many predictable spinoffs of the Madoff affair is the fear, expressed by the ADL and other organizations, that it will lead to an increase in "anti-Semitism". And I will say again -- 'cause I've already said it -- "au contraire". This, of all cases, ought to serve to _neutralize_ anti-Semitic feeling. Why? Because the age-old stereotype is of the smart, Shylock-type Jew running rings around, and cheating, the stupid goyim. They "Jew" you out of your money then skip town, leaving you penniless or (worse) landless, and then go on to exploit someone else in some other place. Right? Except in this case it was, guess what, overwhelmingly other Jews who got cheated. So much for ethnic "loyalty"! I would think that, if anything, this sort of news ought to be reassuring to people with a "thing" about Jews and their alleged lying, cheating, stealing ways. But, oh well, that wouldn't make a nice juicy headline, and what Abe Foxman & Co. want more than anything else is to pursue the grievance/persecution biz 24-7. That fact that they wind up sounding like paranoid idiots doesn't seem to act as a deterrent.

Hot Quaker Oats

“Global warming” has already been blamed for everything from beached whales to psoriasis – but a new high (or low) was reached the other day with a pronouncement by a Munich-based organization. They pointed out that the severity of natural disasters is going up, and with it the related death toll. And for 2008, the second-biggest disaster – traceable to global warming, no doubt – was an earthquake in China. There were also destructive earthquakes in Pakistan. OK – so, given that the global warming panic is all based on sound science that admits of no argument or dissent, would someone please explain to me how global warming causes earthquakes? I mean... don't earthquakes start miles under the ground? And isn't global warming basically a surface and atmospheric phenomenon – at least so far – except for some portion of the oceans? But before you answer that question, let me point out that one of the other global warming-caused disasters was “a severe cold snap” in Central Asia. You know... I hate to keep harping on this, but these global warming people had better stop sounding like nut cases pretty darn soon, or any part of their arguments that is valid is going to be tossed out with the cuckoo crumbs.

Have a Cuppa Joe

So Josef Stalin is considered the third-greatest historical figure, right after Alexander Nevsky and Pyotr Stolypin (who?). Hey, no one can say the Russians don't have a sense of history; Nevsky lived in the 13th Century. As for Stalin – the best friend in all the world of both Churchill and Roosevelt, please note, and a former friend of Hitler – it just proves, once again, that some societies, even highly-cultured ones with a lively intellectual and artistic life, are ultimately committed to the “strong man” concept of leadership. It's the same mentality that says Mussolini “made the trains run on time” or Hitler “built the Autobahn”... so therefore we can excuse a bit of “rough stuff” in other sectors. But beyond that – and don't forget those marvelous subway stations in Moscow – people all over the world still respect, and fear, and therefore respect all the more, the guy who kicks ass. They consider anyone who worries too much about “rights” and “democracy” a kind of wimp – not someone you would really trust to, say, fight a war of conquest or put a stop to internal strife by simply exterminating all their opponents. The “strong man” is a model for leadership in virtually all of Africa, for example... in most of Latin America... and in much of the “third world” portion of Asia. In fact, it's even the model of leadership at the gubernatorial level in many of the Southern states in the U.S. And is Europe really “over it” entirely? Russia certainly isn't – but they've never been as much a part of Europe politically as part of Asia. These are unfortunately facts of political life and human nature that the limp-wristed bureaucrats of the U.N. and the E.U. have yet to deal with – because there is no room in their thinking for anything that outmoded or atavistic. And yet, there it stands – and guess what, many of these societies are acquiring more economic force with each passing day. “One-worlder” pacifists have a few facts to face... but there is no sign that they're ready to face them.