Talking Points

Coleman's nose

Today, Al Franken (D-MN) took his place behind the U.S. Senate desk previously held by defeated Republican (and good loser) Norm Coleman. Alas, under the desk? Coleman's dried boogers. Years of them. One for every false smile he ever flashed. Looked like Mammoth Caves.

R for Republican = Ridiculous statement incoming

I was reading something off the news, an opinion piece, and could feel the muscles in my neck begin to contract. "Oh my god," I'm wondering, "what if he's right?" Then I saw his political affiliation: R for Republican.

Nevermind. These poor souls have nothing to offer. And they had eight years to prove that point. Zombie ideologues unite! You have nothing to lose but your relevancy - to the world as it actually works.

Fear flies to Texas

Happily at home on Inauguration day, office closed, Photoshopping the extra chins off my head shot. It's been dark here for hours. In Washington, the parade continues.

What got on Air Force One and flew away to Texas? The Fear. For almost eight years, this nation has had one emotional trigger, force-fed from Bunker White House: fear. Fear of everyone, everything, including ourselves. There are no solutions! Strike first! That's been replaced. I feel calm when I watch Obama. Calm is his brand. There are only solutions. Let's get started.

Hillary garaged

Loving it: Obamarama

It's about reassurance, now. It's not about fear.

I think the Republicans glued themselves to the fearsomeness of the world -- without achieving much in the way of results. "It's too serious to even tell you! It's so horrible, we can't even let you look!"

And everything just got worse. Were they incompetent? Were they stupid? Were they inattentive? Clearly, some of the above.

Proposition: send the Bush administration to civics jail; a deal, to avoid prosecution once they leave the hard bubble of high office. Stupidity is not a crime (or we'd require infinitely expandable prisons). Lying, death resulting, is. Like in Iraq. Bush, his top brass, to blame. Prison would be a salutary history lesson.

So: Obamarama! In a democracy, people can only absorb so much fear, anger, and gloom. The party that steps up with a truckload of hope will be greeted with open arms, ears, and eyes.

For the American voter beast, hope is essential. My-way-or-the-highway politicians rush to forget that. Authoro-robo-guys like Dick Cheney promised this: An end of freedom, for your own good.

Even if it's true (and surely it is not), it's emotional nonsense. You cannot rule a democracy when everyone -- in their heart of hearts -- feels you're wrong.

George Orwell changed the world. It was a literary inoculation for Western readers. We all read 1984. Thank you, 10th-grade teachers! And so now citizen immune systems reject absolutes uttered by pomped-up, puffed-up, know-it-all, certainly-know-more-than-you-do, dictatocrats like Dick(weed) Cheney.

Why do people love nonprofits? When you make a gift, you get to HOPE.

America the Beautiful ... again

Obama wins. Eight years of grim, grimmer, grimmest heads for the record books. America is cool again.

Bailing without a bottom

Back in the early 1990s I was one the guys who helped sell the idea of 401(k)s to very reluctant work forces. They didn't understand it. They feared it. They were deaf to half the pitch: when you said markets would go up and down, they only heard down. But companies wanted out of the so-called defined benefits racket. So with plentiful inducements (company matches), everyone bought in.

Okay, cut to the federal government. One would think, one would hope, one would fantasize that a responsible national government would have a few priorities posted on its bulletin board, number one being: Protect these people's retirement investments at all costs. Risk management, in other words. Because if you don't? Well, for one thing, the U.S. health care system is headed toward the boomer iceberg like the Titanic at flank speed. And if those golden oldies (me included) don't have any money left to help pay for the enormous cost of their chronic diseases and repair bills? Guess who gets stuck again.

Maybe the U.S. can take on so much debt that the obligations become another planet orbiting the sun. Right now I'm afraid the debt will become an asteroid instead, ending life as we know it.

DC calling

The things you learn. Spoke to a client in Washington, DC. The city's in emotional and financial suspended animation. The client's $3 million capital campaign is now on uncertain hold "until the climate improves." Maybe tomorrow. Today, Congress gave the go-ahead to a $700 million bailout of too-smart-for-their-own-[and-our]-britches fat cats, pending details that will remove the bad odor. The American Voters' Prayer: Please, lord, give us a new, thoughtful, intelligent government real soon.

Well, I'm watching anyway

John McCain wants to postpone his Friday presidential debate with Barack Obama. Senator McCain has heard the claxon: All hands on the Senate deck as the $700 million bailout sails in for discussion. Is he the Senate's leading authority on finance? Would he be missed? No. He's an armed services geek, not an economy geek, as he himself admits.

But the proposed postponement has a Part Two: the rescheduled McCain-Obama dust-up would take the time slot now reserved for the VP debate, maybe sending that event into oblivion and freeing Sarah Palin from the uncertain task of matching her very recently acquired understanding of foreign and national affairs against a seasoned Joe Biden's. It's called risk management. Keep your weak assets away from excess stress.

My sister called

I learned from her that my father wasn't a racist. He was an equal-opportunity hater. Anyone different -- any nationality, ethnicity, or race -- was worthy of his casual contempt. Many of those he hated on general principles he liked personally and spoke of with admiration, when he got to know them. He's gone. I think about him a lot.

My sister and I discussed the impact on the 2008 presidential contest of Sarah Palin's womb.

And I find myself living in a state without economic development. It has economic arrested development. In one week's time, the newspaper has reported that state unemployment bounded skyward to 8.6% -- a three point gain in a month; AND that the local casino, the state's third largest source of revenue, is almost surely heading for bankruptcy. Understand, Rhode Island is desperately trying to sew closed a $425 million deficit tear. This is a seriously bad time to lose a huge chunk of slot machine change.

It is also the week of the proposed $800 million bailout. The FBI is investigating Fannie, Freddie, Lehman and AIG for fraud at the highest levels. Voters want someone flogged. They'd let the bailout off the scrutiny hook, I think, if someone senior in each company were flogged. I'm not talking metaphorically. Isn't it time for a return to corporal punishment, reserving it for destructive greed?