POV

My cup is half empty.

the Pessimist

My cup is half full.

the Optimist

My cup runneth over!

the Psalmist

Golden Parachute

GM has now joined the soup line with the federal mortgage giants and AIG. It seems if you are a big enough failure you can extort the world economy into paying for your lunch.

I wonder how long it is going to take for members of Congress to start asking failed executives to repay their mega-bonuses. Executive bonuses are a drop in the bucket compared to collosal fiscal reversals, but it is the principle of the thing. Why reward failure? It is distasteful to Americans, and painful to watch when one's own parachute is in tatters.

Of course it will be argued that the bonuses were earned in better days when the economy was right side up, like last summer. The execs made their numbers, brought in the profits, and that is why they got the atta-boys. It isn't their fault the economy is determined to sink like a sounding blue whale.

And that is just the point, isn't it. If the failure of global economies is too big to lay at the richly paneled door of the executives, then probably the previous run-up in the economy wasn't really their doing either.

Mandate?

Mandate: n. That brief period of time between final election results and first opinion polls when a politician feels he has to accomplish something, anything, regardless of whether he ran on the issue.

 

It always surprises me that a politician who won 53% of the popular vote will claim to have a big mandate from the people. It further surprises me that said mandate is used to advance things like stem cell research, which we are already pursuing, and which got little mention in the campaign.

 

Let the politician remember that 47% of the electorate mandated that he go back to his day job, and proceed judiciously.

 

Of course there is a real mandate here. Anyone familiar with the electoral maps can see it. The results play the ends against the middle, or more to the point, the cities against the towns and country. The victor in this election owes his new job to LA, NY, SF and other urban centers. We can expect favors to come due shortly after January 20.

 

 

Suicide by Chocolate

Last night after seeing how the electoral map was shaping up I baked us some post-election-pecan-crusted-double-fudge-brownies. Served hot under two scoops of vanilla ice cream, it was supposed to be comfort food.

It didn't help.

I will say that after a much too long political season listening finally to concession and victory speeches was somehow cathartic. Mr. McCain returned to his natural role of gentleman Senator, collegial, respectful, conciliatory. And Mr. Obama followed up with a stirring speech of his own. Both spoke about reconciliation and healing and reaching across the party divide. It reminded me of the gracious remarks offered by Speaker Pelosi two years ago. "Partnership, not partisanship," and "dialogue and trust across the aisle."

Mmm-hmm...

So John McCain will return to the Senate, the perennial Maverick, reaching across to heal the nation. But with a new administration in the White House, and strengthened Democrat positions in both Houses of congress, will anyone on the other side be reaching back?

"This is Texas"

Ya gotta love Texas Governor Rick Perry's response to hurricane Dolly's category 2 landfall last night.

"These hurricanes can be highly unpredictable. We prepare for the worst and pray for the best," he said. "This is Texas. Our approach is to lean into these problems."

God bless Texas!

Ich bin ein Frankfurter

Hot dogging around the Middle East and Europe this week is the Senator from Illinoise with anchors from nbabcbs in close pursuit. It irked me yesterday to have Charlie reporting on hurricane Dolly's Texas landfall with the Holy City Jerusalem as a back drop. The implied message is that the center of the universe is wherever the new messiah is standing. Today it is Berlin.

Even Charlie's semisoftball question ("Rookie mistake?") didn't compensate for the affected gravitas that relocation conferred. BO gets to act presidential for the cameras, leaving it to McSame to simply react presidential, which is not the same thing at all.