Political Observations

Dan Balz, on Meet The Press, 9 Mar 2008 on NBC:

... The first African American and the first woman candidate, that's a ticket-shattering- that's a history-shattering ticket.

Exactly.

Caroline Kennedy's endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama refers to "a new generation of Americans" who could be inspired by a president like some Americans were inspired by her father John F. Kennedy when he was president.

Putting aside romantic notions of Camelot and wistful thoughts about what might have been, analysis of John F. Kennedy's presidency will lead the students of history to conclude that in his actions he was much like other US presidents. In a sense, each has been unique, but in the most common sense, they all had the exceptional quality of 'becoming a US president'.

So what made John F. Kennedy special was something intangible; you could not quite put your finger on it, but when you saw it in action you knew it, and you felt it. It is undeniable (in the personal, self-evident, experiential way).

This is the way Caroline Kennedy puts it:

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

Comparing a current candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination to a hallowed memory of a long ago US president (even one as unremarkable, on the facts, as Kennedy) seems like an exercise in futility. However, seeking in the two men that quality that makes people feel like something intangible becomes palpable is a tendency difficult to resist.

A hundred years, all new fools.

Where is the sheriff of Wall Street when you need him?

From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/business/17cnd-bush.html?hp :

the White House was willing “to bail out Wall Street at taxpayer expense,” even as it opposed legislation intended to ease the financial crunch on mortgages.

Wall Street needs another "sheriff" to bring order :

“We obviously will continue to monitor the situation and when need be, will act decisively, in a way that continues to bring order to the financial markets,” he said.

 

Imagine New Orleans getting $200 billion.

How much money is being "spent" ("invested?") in Iraq every day?

From NYTimes on the web, article at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/29cohen.html:

Never before have U.S. fortunes been so tied to the world’s. Americans see that. When your mortgage is packaged into some ingenious security that’s sold to a German bank before the scheme unravels and you lose your house, the globe looks smaller.

No, "Americans" don't see that.  Would it be wise for "Americans" to see that?

With some 30 percent of the revenue of U.S. corporations coming from overseas, and the Chinese buying American debt, and more than seven million people naturalized in the past decade, it’s harder to separate America’s fate from that of others. Isolationism is not merely wrong, it’s impossible.

Really?  Is not "America" the "indispensable nation", as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has declared?  Does it not seem like the world's economies (or economy) relies on an intimate interdependence?