Columnist.
"Live simply so that others may simply live," Gandhi famously proclaimed. Some vegetarians see their diet as the truest expression of Gandhi's advice. But these days, the slogan has been embraced most passionately by those who wish to say goodbye to economic growth. That's not an exaggeration. The so-called "steady-state economy" movement holds that "We will have to get beyond growth as a society in order to realize a sustainable future."
Washington is suddenly embroiled in one of its most time-honored traditions, a debate about the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution, specifically how it should be applied to our efforts in Libya. But don't worry! This is not a column about the War Powers Act, the term paper topic of choice for earnest AP social studies students for roughly the past four decades. Instead, it is about the bipartisan problem of institutional cowardice in the American political system. The War Powers Act -- which sets an arbitrary deadline for presidents to seek congressional approval for military engagements -- is just one facet of a much more serious malady: acute buck-passing.
"Now, my administration has a job to do as well, and that job is to get this economy back on its feet," President Obama declared on July 14, 2009, in Warren, Mich. "That's my job, and it's a job I gladly accept. I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, well, this is Obama's economy. That's fine. Give it to me." OK. It's yours.
Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York is a very busy man. He sits on several important committees. He's newly married to a high-powered wife. He's planning a run for mayor of New York City, which they call "the city that never sleeps" for a reason. In fact, he's so busy that from 2007 to 2010, he reportedly racked up more than $2,000 in unpaid parking tickets in Washington, D.C., partly due to his penchant for parking his car -- WeinerMobile, if you prefer -- with expired tags at a taxi stand. So when the busy Mr. Weiner was asked on Wednesday if he was the guy pictured in the photo of a man in tight gray briefs in a state of readiness the folks at NORAD might describe as "Defcon 1," the congressman responded that he just couldn't say for sure. "I don't know what photographs are out there in the world of me," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Princeton's Cornel West, one of the most famous black intellectuals in America, says that President Obama is afraid of "free black men." Because of Obama's atypical upbringing, West says, "when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a de-racination." With whom does the rootless cosmopolitan-in-chief find himself most comfortable? Jews and rich white men, says West. No surprise given the professor's view that Obama is a "black mascot" and a "black puppet" for Wall Street and corporate America.
Alea iacta est. That's what Julius Caesar proclaimed as he crossed the Rubicon river in 49 B.C. It means "the die is cast." By crossing the Rubicon with his army, against Roman law, Caesar guaranteed a head-on conflict with the overconfident Roman ruler Pompey. Outnumbered, Caesar was presented with the choice: win or die. The recent special election in the 26th congressional district of New York was a political Rubicon. The Democrat, Kathy Hochul, ran against the Republican budget, specifically Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to save Medicare by turning it into a voucher program starting 10 years from now (excluding all current beneficiaries).
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' announcement that he can't play in the presidential primaries because his wife and daughters say he's not allowed to is terrible news for the GOP and the country. It's terrible not because Daniels was obviously the best candidate or that he had the best chance to beat President Obama. It's terrible because Daniels would have elevated the debate on entitlement reform and the budget in a way that no one else currently in the race seems able to.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn has resigned as the head of the International Monetary Fund. He would like to spend more time with his family. But that's not why he resigned. He'd like to spend more time with his family, as opposed to potentially spending time with inmates, because he's been charged with the sexual assault and attempted rape of an African-immigrant hotel maid. "DSK," as he's known in France, is socialist royalty and was the presumed shoo-in to beat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year's presidential race.
The Republican presidential logjam has finally broken. Donald Trump, who believes not only that he would make the best president but that he could win, declined to run because making money is his true "passion." It's as if Cincinnatus loved his plow too much. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also bowed out, with class and dignity even his friend Trump could not buy. Ron Paul, the libertarian Harold Stassen, is in for another go, presumably on the mistaken assumption that America has turned into Tea Party Nation. (If only!)
After hearing the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, who among us didn't joyfully shout, "Yes! This is a huge triumph for wind and solar energy!" Or, "Wahoo! Now we can get immigration reform passed!" Personally, I would like to thank every member of SEAL Team 6 for taking such huge risks for high-speed rail and for streamlining the bureaucratic regulations governing salmon fishing. If you're confused, it's only because you haven't heard the White House explain the true significance of bin Laden's death. According to an article in the Washington Post headlined "Bin Laden raid fits into Obama's 'big things' message," the White House believes taking out the world's most wanted terrorist is a boon for the entire Obama agenda.
For a week people have been asking, "Why won't the president release Osama bin Laden's photo?" That's the wrong question. We should be asking, "Why was Barack Obama in such a hurry to tell us bin Laden was dead?" The White House says the information in bin Laden's compound is the equivalent of a "small college library," potentially containing incalculably valuable and unique data on al-Qaeda operations, personnel and methods. "It's going to be great even if only 10 percent of it is actionable," a government official told Politico's Mike Allen.
Killing Osama bin Laden is a strange way to start a presidential campaign season, but that's where we are. Now, bin Laden wasn't taken out for partisan political reasons. Nor was his death ultimately a partisan policy. With only the most cartoonish exceptions imaginable (a President Kucinich, perhaps), it's inconceivable that any Republican or Democratic president would have passed up the opportunity to kill the world's most wanted man. Killing murderers like bin Laden is simply what U.S. presidents do.
Of course you've heard some version of this tale before. Winston Churchill says to a woman at a party, "Madam, would you sleep with me for 5 million pounds?" The woman stammers: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill. Well, yes, I suppose ... Churchill interrupts: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?" The woman responds immediately: "What? Of course not! What kind of woman do you think I am?!"
"What the heck went wrong?" That, apparently, is the question roiling the environmental community as it realizes that the fight against climate change has fizzled. As Brad Plumer writes in the New Republic, everything was looking great in 2008 for a sweeping effort to make good on candidate Barack Obama's pledge to start turning back the rising oceans. The Democrats held Congress. Both John McCain and Obama had promised to push for capping carbon emissions. Corporations had gotten on board. Al Gore and "An Inconvenient Truth" had seemingly softened up the public to the point where it might go along with whatever a popular president promised.
The list of people I feel sorry for is long. It includes not just all of the people I know personally who are suffering from one misfortune or another, but the billions around the world who're having a rougher time than they ought: Japanese earthquake victims, targets of ethnic cleansing, etc. Then there's the supplemental list, which includes everyone from fans of "Lost" who were ripped off by the series finale to the guy in the middle seat on a long flight. But one guy who doesn't make the list is Barack Obama.
At this point, there's at least one thing you can't blame Donald Trump for: being Donald Trump. Like the scorpion in Aesop's fables who must sting the frog because that's simply what scorpions do, the world-renowned, self-promoting billionaire-clown must tout himself with passion and narcissistic self-regard. It was only a matter of time, for instance, before he came out with his own fragrance: Donald Trump Cologne by Donald Trump Eau De Toilettes (You can find it on Amazon.com. The first of the two customer reviews is from a woman who discovered the scent as it wafted up from the stock boy at "Toys R Us").
I cannot remember a more depressing week in Washington. The Republicans boasted a heroic accomplishment: slashing $38.5 billion from the budget, purportedly the largest cuts in history. But the cake was made from sawdust. Strip away the gimmicks and shine a light on the shadows, and it turns out the real cuts amounted to $352 million, or less than 1 percent of what was promised.
"Since American liberals don't have the guts to say it, allow me: The Rev. Terry Jones hasn't done anything wrong. Nothing." So writes my friend and conservative radio host Michael Graham in the Boston Herald. And on this, I think Michael's nuts. Graham is referring to Jones, the pastor of a tiny fringe church in Florida, who held a Monty Pythonesque "trial" for the Koran and, to the surprise of no one, found the book guilty and then set it on fire. While the stunt got blessedly little attention in the United States, foreign media picked it up, and some radical clerics overseas used the incident to foment murderous pogroms against Westerners.
Republicans want to "end Medicare as we know it." Cue cat shriek! This "end Medicare as we know it" line -- and many like it ("end Medicaid as we know it," "end carbon-based life as we know it," etc.) -- is the lead-off talking point for the entire Democratic Party in response to Rep. Paul Ryan's just-released budget proposal, "The Path to Prosperity."
New York Times columnist, best-selling author and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman wishes America could be more like China. Specifically, he wishes we could adopt their authoritarian style in pursuit of the so-called green revolution and clean energy. Casting what he calls an "envious eye" on China, Friedman finds that country's "one-party autocracy" so much more efficient, informed and wise than our messy democratic way of doing things. "In China," Friedman explained on "Meet The Press" last year, "if the leadership can get around to an enlightened decision it can order it from the top down." Meanwhile here in America, with our two-party system, "every solution is sub-optimal."
