Kapitol Hill

Who Are These People?

President Bush has an an average approval rating of about 22 percent according to a compilation of  polls recently released.  The latest is a Newsweek poll conducted this past week.  In that survey 23 percent of people approved of the President's performance, 67 percent disapproved and another ten percent of Americans polled said they were unsure whether they approved or disapproved of how George W. Bush has thus far handled his seven plus years in office.

What that boils down to is more than a third of Americans thought the President was doing just fine or didn't have enough information to make a honest choice either way.  I find that curious.  Despite the entire collapse of the financial sector of the country; despite the collapse of the housing market which is predicted to force about two-million people out on the street; despite the increase in people standing in line for unemployment benefits and in many industrial states the unemployment rate totaling twice the rate nationally; despite the warping of the one time non-partisan units of the Justice Department into outlets of political operations; despite the ill-conceived strategy let alone initiation of the War in Iraq, which has lead to more than four-thousand young soldiers' deaths; despite the fact on a pile of Twin Tower rubble the President vowed to bring the villains to justice Osama bin Laden still roams the hills of Pakistan and Afghanistan; despite the increase of infections of  HIV/AIDS; despite the decrease in numbers of children receiving health care; despite the slow action and return to normal in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast after two major hurricanes; despite it all there are some in this country who are quite proud of the job this President has performed and even more disturbing there is a tenth of the population that need more information to make up their mine.

That curiosity leads me to ask in my Jerry Seinfeld mocking tone: "Who are These People?"  I ask not to be funny because not being able to rationally look at facts and make a logical conclusion from that seems disturbing to someone with even average intelligence.  Perhaps it is just purely for partisan reasons.  In a survey

conducted earlier this year by USAToday, 66 percent of Republicans approved of the President's performance.

Or perhaps even more startling is that these blind-loyalist are those who operate on the fringe of society.  Those who despite glaring facts choose to accept or approve things not because of any valid information but because they find themselves isolated from the rest of society.  They operate on the borders and yet find themselves impacting the rest of us.

Take the October 10th rally Senator McCain held in Minnesota.  This is the one where the red-sweatshirt donned woman suggested she could not trust Senator Obama because he was an arab.  Even the well informed anti-Obama fanatic calls him a radical because muslim doesn't wash with the good pastor Wright of Trinity Church.  What was less reported in that rally was John McCain's on supporters ridiculed him verbally for dismissing the statement for what it was -- at the very least uninformed and probably more accurate -- stupid.  They shouted their disdain and cried out "come on John!"  So much for the attractiveness of  riding the "Straight Talk Express."  Leaving that day's campaign trail, we can only pray that even John McCain had to ask his closest aide, "Who Are These People?"  

Or perhaps they are the people who on October 24th, applauded Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin when she criticized giving funding to scientific exploration of the genetics of fruit flies.  It is amazing that people in the audience would criticize such research when it has been fruit fly experiments, which has lead to the very developments of children's health that Governor Palin was discussing.  It is this type of uninformed behavior that operates on the borders and yet can find itself impacting the rest of us.

The examples of outside the norm thinking can go on forever: Representatives thinking a Eugene McCarthy-esque inquisition should occur to find the "un-American" liberals walking the halls of Congress; or those who believe their are pro and anti parts of this country -- even suggesting Northern Virginia isn't the real Virginia. Yet, the most disturbing example occurred in  Pittsburgh in the form of Ashley Todd.

Ms. Todd apparently told authorities that while at an ATM a huge, dark black man had robbed and assaulted her by carving a B for Barack Obama in her right cheek.  The blogs went wild and Matt Drudge was the first to take the story and run with it-- even the New York Post took the story and gave it full attention.  The ghastliness of such a feat would feed into the fears of many who are concerned about the first African-American taking the chair in the Oval Office.

The problem with the story is it is not true.  A hoax of the most disturbing kind because it is fueled by historical thinking deeply wed to racism and fear.  Ms.Todd has a history of mental issues and said she was only trying to help her candidate.  She travelled all the way from Texas hoping her story would sway voters in the crucial state of Pennsylvania.

 Pittsburgh police took the tale with the grain of salt they should have.  They immediately went to get the video from the security camera near the ATM  where she was attacked -- they found no such assault.  They also gave her a polygraph, which discovered she was hiding the truth.

In a different time the police would have put out an APB, and rounded up every similar looking Black man on the streets to find the perp who had violated the historic crime of assaulting a white woman.  It happened before and what would not make it happen again?

Perhaps that answer lies in the other side of the favorability coin -- the fact that two-thirds of the country does not live on the fringe, does not take irrational thoughts as facts, can make honest and objective decisions not based on partisanship or blind loyalties.

If it is true that some Americans can still look at a highly charged incident and not allow emotions to become high and find out the facts instead of  running with follies.  If that be the case, then we must feel a sense of comfort and say thank God for these people.

Kapitol Hill publishes a new commentary every week. Please feel free to leave a comment and check back next week for a new column.

From Maverick to Mendacity

I like Senator John McCain.  In fact it could be safe to say that I have great respect and admiration for Senator John McCain.  How could you not say such a man is deserving of our honor and gratitude.  Senator John McCain is the man who spent five years in a prisoner of war camp cell where he endured tremendous amounts of torture.  He was shot down on one of his brave missions for his country trying to stop the spread of communism in a region of the world that desperately needed -- and still needs some stable form of government.  Senator John McCain is the man who after being harshly rebuked for what he himself calls the lowest moment in his career and judgment during the Keating Five Scandal rallied back to help bring about some of the most sweeping campaign fund-raising laws since the Watergate scandal.  Senator John McCain is the man who when his party was demonizing poor Mexicans for trying at all costs-- even illegal ones -- to live the American Dream try and bring about comprehensive immigration reform, which stood on the stage of human decency not xenophobic ideals.  Senator John McCain is the man who during the heated battle for the 2000 Republican Nomination against George W. Bush called the tactics used against him immoral and said, "there is a special place in hell reserved for people" who would try and call his Indonesia adopted daughter an illegitimate black child.  Senator John McCain is the man who called right-wing religious zealots "agents of intolerance."  Senator John McCain is the man who honestly admitted that he was so desperate during that political fight eight years ago that he was a coward and could not rightfully and dutifully say that the Confederate Flag which flies in South Carolina that he did not stand by his principles and publicly say it should come down.  Senator John McCain is the man who called his vote against the Martin L. King Holiday foolish and a mistake.

Senator John McCain is a hard man not to love.

What is disappointing is Senator John McCain is not running for President.  The McCain running for the White House is like a victim of the pea-pods in the "Body Snatchers."  Presidential Candidate John McCain has all but discarded the principles that made him such a solid brand all in himself to grab onto the white hot reins of sleazy politics that many around him believe is necessary to win the right to sit in the Oval Office-- some of them the very people he despised eight years ago.

It is not just the fact that Presidential Candidate McCain has used the politics of distraction to keep the public away from the issues -- that is what happens in politics and anyone who doesn't think that mischaracterizations of your rivals votes, positions and policies doesn't or shouldn't occur is less than a casual observer.  What is disturbing is Presidential Candidate John McCain doesn't seem to have a moral compass.  President Candidate John McCain doesn't seem to have an ethical line he refuses to cross along the campaign trail.

It would be unfair to say that Senator Barack Obama hasn't done his share of skewed political fighting and has made some false claims himself to be sure -- but Senator Obama has kept his attacks squarely fixed on policy differences -- not personal character differences.  Presidential Candidate John McCain has built his entire candidacy on the fact that Senator Obama is not character worthy to be President-- not American enough--not mainstream enough-- not fill-in-the-blank enough.

Not only is that such a vile attack that it is beneath the honor code the old Navy pilot once adhered to -- it is against the very core principle that should attract someone to vote for a president.  If the American public had paid close attention to the 1968 campaign of Richard Nixon, they would have seen the groundwork of Watergate clearly laid out for all of us to see.

In Joe McGinniss account of Nixon's successful 1968 campaign, "The Selling of the President" he outlines the falsehoods Nixon's aides created with the tool of images and television.  In the book a senior aide, William Gavin, explained the crux of the mendacity this way:

"...reason pushes the viewer back, it assaults him, it demands that he agree or disagree; impression can envelop him... he can receive the impression without having to think about it in a linear, structured way... and for most people this is the most difficult work of all. The emotions are more easily roused, closer to the surface, more malleable.  Get the voters to like the guy, and the battle's two thirds won."

In other words how you campaign is an indication of how you will govern.

That simple rule is the key to Presidential Candidate John McCain's victory strategy -- the American people liked him.  He was two-thirds there -- but the  mendacity of the other third -- getting the American people to not like your opponent has now enveloped his entire meaning to run.  In other words he is not running for something he is running against something --something he has falsely created through smears and that is a losing strategy.

This past week has been even more disheartening because the mendacity being utilized is not only lowly but dangerous.  Over the course of the last few days the McCain campaign has resorted to virtually calling Senator Obama a terrorists who will turn the White House into a Mosque.  One supporter even suggested Obama would get someone to paint the White House black.

They use an association with a self-described radical of the 1960s who tried to bomb government buildings to protest the Vietnam War as their primary case.  Governor Sarah Palin described it as "palling around with terrorists."

The fact that connecting the philosophy of Obama to  the actions of William Ayers when Obama was 8 years old living abroad is a trumped up charge worthy of laugh-ability doesn't seem to matter to McCain.

Yet, what is more disturbing is the incitement these outrageous statements have churned and the loud silence from the campaign itself.  When making their attacks people in the crowd screamed: "terrorists" and "kill him" and even verbally assaulted a camera man simply because he was black.  Even if you give McCain and Palin and their on-site aides credit for not hearing these dangerous criticisms when they were widely reported not a word, not a murmur out of the campaign condemning the attacks.

So not only does the level of mendacity not seem to matter, the fact that the campaign's level of deceit creates such historically dangerous rhetoric doesn't seem to reach a level of the campaign even caring.  The only relief we may have is that the Secret Service does care and is investigating the incidents as possible threats.

I would like to think that this is just another South Carolina Confederate flag flap; another Martin L. King holiday misstep; a temporary set aside of principled stances Senator John McCain ever made from his disapproval of torture to pushing up to agents of intolerance at Bob Jones University; a brief Hail Mary like the suspension of his campaign at the height of the Wall Street crisis. 

I pray that one day Senator McCain will wake up and say to himself that this is wrong, I made a mistake, I became an ogre trying to grab the precious golden ring, that he will stand tall and apologize to those who once believed in his maverick brand and admired his willingness to compromise policy but not his principles.

Mendacity has costs -- and for Presidential Candidate John McCain  he may have lost his last chance at the White House -- But perhaps he hasn't lost the map to where he left Senator John McCain.

Kapitol Hill publishes a new commentary every week. Feel free to leave a comment and remember to return next week to read the next installment.

Robbing The Piggy Bank

A number of Wall Street insiders and conservative politicians who support them as vital to the struggling, slowing down economy have started to beat a curious drum as the reason why Wall Street tanks an average of 300 points daily and the major financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and other have shuttered their doors.  They are blaming the homeowner and the policies implemented in the late 1960s to answer the injustice of people of color not receiving the same loan opportunities or seeing things like banks actually spring up in their neighborhoods.

It is not the greedy loan officers, the shadowy mortgage brokers, the unethical lawyers and appraisers or even the get rich as soon as possible hedge fund billionaires who actually created the idea of "Credit Default Securities" in the first place.  No they are not to blame -- it is the ignorant, greedy, shadowy, unethical middle class family that took a gun into the bank with a note that read: "give me a loan I can't afford or I will shoot everyone in this damn place!"

Yes these violent offenders who wanted to obtain the American Dream of homeownership like they were told was possible are to blame.  How dare they rob they piggy bank!  How dare people like 90-year old Addie Polk!  Who is Addie Polk?  Mrs. Polk is a 90-year old woman who facing eviction from the home she lived in for 30 years decided she would shoot herself in the chest.

She became the home's sole owner in 1995 when her husband died and since then then took out a mortgage loan in 1997 and refinanced several times in order to pay bills.  Which bank did Mrs. Polk lean on in her time of need -- Countrywide Home Loans.  Yes the same Countrywide that is being investigated in more than a dozen states for pushing bad loans and engaging in predatory lending in minority and low-income communities.  Countrywide filed for foreclosure last year, and Polk's home was sold to Fannie Mae at a sheriff's auction in June. Deputies were to escort Polk from her home Wednesday when gunshots were heard inside.  She was found laying on her bed bleeding to death.

It shouldn't be homeowners like Addie Polk shedding blood, it should be these piggy banks who wanted nothing but more ante for the till to bundle and sell off to Fannie or Freddie -- with a nice bow of a good credit rating by S&P on top.  

IndyMac, a complete subsidy of the once powerful Countrywide is a prime example.  According to the Center for Responsible Lending, the scheme to rob aspiring homeowners was quite severe and purposeful.:

  In interviews and court documents, 19 former employees describe an atmosphere where the

drive to close loans ruled even when IndyMac's own risk experts recommended against

approvals. Most of the ex-employees who provided information for this report were mortgage 

underwriters who were supposed to be making sure borrowers could afford the deals. They 

say their efforts to do their jobs were hamstrung by higher-ups.

CRL details in various reports how even potential homeowners whose credit ratings were good enough for a stable, lower-interests,

low principle loans were pushed into adjustable loans that would balloon in six to 12 months and keep doing so annually.

So what is the conclusion to all of this. Congress has passed a $700 billion dollar bailout -- uh rescue -- plan to Wall Street to try and

take out of the market many of these bad loans. Many economists don't expect it to have any real effect on the ground the so-called

proverbial "main-street." In fact, CRL has put out a new foreclosure report that shows that their prediction of how many people will

lose their homes in 2008-2009 will double from its original forecasts of 1.1million to roughly 2.2million.

Back in Akron, Ohio Addie Polk is recovering just fine. She even called her stunt silly and crazy. But the good news is that she will

actually be able to stay in her home. So it seems now that the piggy bank is full of taxpayers dollars, these two million plus homeowners

should go out and buy guns. Because ff critics who fault poor, minorities and low income home buyers just looking to get ahead are going to continue 

the blame game finger pointing -- they will probably need them to really go out and rob the piggy bank or follow Addie's example.

Kapitol Hill publishes a new commentary every week, Please feel free to leave a comment and don't forget to check back next week for

a new installment. NEXT WEEK: The (Provisional) Ballot or the Bullet.