From NBC…

Back to the January post, which was about cutting back on delivery days, I saw two advantages to that model…

First, the fewer the days the mail is delivered, the less gas the Post Office uses. Demand goes down, price goes down.

Second, I’d rather miss a Tuesday delivery than a Saturday one. That way the mail carriers have a normal work week and a premium is placed on getting mail to you on the weekends via Express Mail. This model would be much more competitive with FedEx, etc.

While closing branches would accomplish the first, it wouldn’t make the Postal Service more competitive with FedEx…which is exactly what they need to do.

More as it develops…

Some sobering stats when thinking about the fallout from last year. Now entire families, like the one pictured above, are living out of a single hotel. And those are the lucky ones.

From Wash Post:

Although the number of homeless individuals remained relatively stable between 2007 and 2008, the number of homeless families rose 9 percent, and in rural and suburban areas the number jumped by 56 percent, according to a report released last week by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In real terms, homelessness is still concentrated in urban areas and among adult males; 20 percent of homeless people live in Los Angeles, New York and Detroit. About 1.6 million people used an emergency shelter between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008, including 516,700 people in families. [...]

“The typical homeless person has changed to become less focused on the chronically homeless or single-individual homeless to somebody who is part of a family, whether it be a mother or a father or a child in a homeless family,” HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said. “I think what that tells us is that the economic crisis is forcing more families who had previously been well-housed into homelessness.”

That 56% jump is pretty insane and speaks to how much people need the basics right now. Especially children. Because free access to good health care becomes that much more important when kids don’t have a home. And not just for physical illnesses. The homeless are much more prone to mental illnesses due to poor diet, feelings of hopelessness, easier access to narcotics, higher incidences of sexual abuse and many other factors.

This is one of the reasons why the administration insisted that health care and unemployment benefits make up a large majority of the stimulus funding. Because it doesn’t do us any good to have these folks out on the street since it’ll cost more in the long run to treat them when they get sick/injured or if they turn to a life of crime to make ends meet. That may sound like nanny state stuff for some who read this blog, but I’d rather deal with these problems now and pay a few thousand dollars to keep folks like these in their homes instead of pay tens of thousands to jail them, treat their mental illnesses, etc.

I think we can all agree that the die is cast on social safety nets. That’s why it’s more important than ever to find the most cost effective ways to implement them.

So when I read the following story in the NY Times about states slashing money for these programs, I just shook my head…especially since doing so will end up costing us more money in the long run.

Madness…

Perhaps nowhere have the cuts been more disruptive than in Arizona, where more than 1,000 frail elderly people are struggling without home-care aides to help with bathing, housekeeping and trips to the doctor. Officials acknowledge that some are apt to become sicker or fall, ending up in nursing homes at a far higher cost.

Ohio and other states face large cutbacks in child welfare investigations, which may mean more injured children and more taken into foster care. Despite tax increases, California has ended dental coverage for adults on Medicaid, all but guaranteeing future medical problems.

“There’s no question that we’re getting short-term savings that will result in greater long-term human and financial costs,” said Linda J. Blessing, interim chief of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, expressing the concerns of officials and community agencies around the country. “There are no good options, just less bad options.”

And so…get ready…this is why state tax rates need to be raised across the board. Yes, not just on the wealthiest, but all of us who can afford it.

The reason is obvious…if we don’t we’ll all end up paying more in the long run anyway. Think of it like a leak in your sink. Fix it early and the floor underneath won’t be damaged. Well, we had that chance a long time ago, but it didn’t happen. And now the floor is close to being rotten.

So yes, there will be some pain and it’ll take a while to fix. But we have to do something about it immediately or risk having the whole floor give way underneath us.

How or why we don’t understand this is beyond me, but this country’s ability to be willfully ignorant is something that never ceases to surprise me. Because already people are talking about healthcare reform with words like “tyranny” and other such nonsense. I mean, making sure everybody has access to health care and other social safety nets is tyrannical? Really? REALLY???

Moving on…

Two words: entitlement reform.

First orders of business: Medicare and Medicaid…

Now, [Director of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget, Peter] Orszag is preparing for the biggest week of his career, with a “fiscal responsibility” summit Monday and the release of Obama’s first budget Thursday. He’s signaling that the moves in the stimulus package are just a hint of what’s to come in a budget that will begin in earnest the arduous process of health care reform.

“What has already been accomplished is a huge start toward a more efficient [health care] system, and I think you’re going to see more in the budget next week,” he told Politico.

Though the budget’s details have been closely held, Orszag revealed, in broad terms, two: a continued focus on health care policy and a plan “to restore the nation to a sustainable fiscal trajectory over the five-to-10- year window.”

The next step on health care, he said, is a set of “changes to Medicare and Medicaid to make them more efficient, and to start using those programs more intelligently to lead the whole health care system.”

But what about Social Security?

Well, it’s not as insolvent as you may think, but there are still some fixes in the works…

Orszag’s long-running project — something that has made the Left’s favorite Cabinet member — has been replacing talk of an “entitlement crisis” with his argument that Social Security requires only modest tax hikes and benefit cuts, while Medicare and Medicaid have much more dramatic fiscal woes.

“Social Security faces an actuarial deficit over the next 75-100 years. In the past I’ve resisted the term ‘crisis’ to describe that kind of situation,” he said. “This is not quantitatively as important as getting healthcare done.”

If Obama can reign this spending in after getting that stimulus bill passed, I think it’ll be hard for Republicans to paint him as fiscally irresponsible.

Still, will Congressional Dems allow Obama to change the game when it comes to programs that have traditionally been considered the third-rails of politics?

We shall see…

Apparently everybody is tightening their belts.

From Wash Post:

In testimony before a Senate subcommittee yesterday, Postmaster General John E. Potter said the post office may be forced to cut back to five-day delivery for the first time in the agency’s history, citing rising costs and an ongoing decline in mail made worse by the global recession. The potential move, which would have to be approved by Congress and postal officials, could mean the elimination of mail on either Saturdays or Tuesdays, the system’s slowest days, postal officials said.

“It is possible that the cost of six-day delivery may simply prove to be unaffordable,” Potter said, adding that the agency may face a deficit of more than $6 billion in the current fiscal year. “I do not make this request lightly, but I am forced to consider every option, given the severity of our challenge.”

The prospect of a shortened delivery week marks the latest setback for the storied post office, which was founded in 1775 with Benjamin Franklin serving as the first postmaster general. It ranks as one of the nation’s largest employers, with about 700,000 career employees.

The benefits of this are two-fold.

First, the fewer the days the mail is delivered, the less gas the Post Office uses. Demand goes down, price goes down.

Second, I’d rather miss a Tuesday delivery than a Saturday one. That way the mail carriers have a normal work week and a premium is placed on getting mail to you on the weekends via Express Mail. This model would be much more competitive with FedEx, etc.

Sound reasonable?

During the campaign season he said he’d go through the federal budget line by line, and this sends a pretty clear message that he intends to make some tough cuts.

From Wash Post:

President-elect Barack Obama will convene a “fiscal responsibility summit” in February designed to bring together a variety of voices on solving the long term problems with the economy and with a special focus on entitlements, he said during an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors this afternoon.

“We need to send a signal that we are serious,” said Obama of the summit.

Those invited to attend will include Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.), ranking minority member Judd Gregg (N.H.), the conservative Democratic Blue Dog coalition and a host of outside groups with ideas on the matter, said the president-elect.

Two programs that Obama has his eye on? Medicare and Social Security…

Obama said that he has made clear to his advisers that some of the difficult choices–particularly in regards to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare – should be made on his watch. “We’ve kicked this can down the road and now we are at the end of the road,” he said.

If this doesn’t make the fiscal hawks out there happy, I’m not exactly sure what will. Of course it can’t just be talk, but the idea that a Democratic president will open up a dialogue about two political third rails a month into his presidency should count for something.

Looks like the first part of Obama’s plan will be making sure that most Americans just stay afloat.

From NY Times:

One proposal, as described by Democratic advisers, would extend unemployment compensation to part-time workers, an idea that Congressional Republicans have blocked in the past.

Other policy changes would subsidize employers’ expenses for temporarily continuing health insurance coverage to laid-off and retired workers and their dependents, as mandated under a 22-year-old federal law known as Cobra, and allow workers who lose jobs that did not come with insurance benefits to be eligible, for the first time, to apply for Medicaid coverage.

The proposals indicate the sorts of potentially long-range changes that Mr. Obama intends to push in his promised American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, as he named it in his weekly Saturday address on the radio and YouTube. They will be combined with one-time measures that are more typical of federal stimulus packages to jump-start a weak economy, like spending for roads and other job-creating public works projects.

You should also expect a new tax cut if you’re in the bottom 95% of income earners…

Rather than propose a one-time tax rebate for all but the most affluent Americans, Mr. Obama is likely to propose what he called during his campaign a “Making Work Pay” tax credit of $500 for eligible individuals and $1,000 for couples. Those who earn too little to pay federal income taxes would receive the credit in the form of a check, intended to offset the payroll taxes they pay for Social Security and Medicare.

Total cost of the package so far is coming in north of $775 billion.

More as it develops…

I wrote about this plan recently, but today I find out that it may not happen.

Why?

Because it’s not “free market” enough.

Good times…

The FCC has been considering auctioning 25 megahertz of spectrum in the 2155MHz to 2180MHz band. As part of the rules for using the spectrum, the FCC plans to require license holders to offer some free wireless broadband service.

The FCC sees the idea, which is based on a proposal submitted to the FCC by M2Z Networks in 2006, as a way to provide broadband Internet service to millions of Americans who either can’t afford or don’t want to pay for high-speed Internet access.

However, in a letter sent to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez expressed the administration’s opposition to the idea, which could be voted on as early as next week, according to the report.

“The administration believes that the (airwaves) should be auctioned without price or product mandate,” Gutierrez wrote, according to the Journal’s report. “The history of FCC spectrum auctions has shown that the potential for problems increases in instances where licensing is overly prescriptive or designed around unproven business models.”

An FCC representative told the newspaper that it had received Gutierrez’s letter and was reviewing it.
“We agree that market forces should help drive competition, but we also believe that providing free basic broadband to consumers is a good thing,” the representative told the Journal.

I’d urge those FCC folks to just wait another month and a half and they’ll have a much more receptive audience.

I hate to be so gloom and doom about our current economic health, but the numbers are the numbers and I feel the need to talk about some of the more striking indicators so we all understand the gravity of the situation we’re in…especially since the following numbers are just from September.

From Reuters:

Food stamps, the main U.S. antihunger program which helps the needy buy food, set a record in September as more than 31.5 million Americans used the program — up 17 percent from a year ago, according to government data.

The number of people using food stamps in September surpassed the previous peak of 29.85 million seen in November 2005 when victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma received emergency benefits, said Jean Daniel of the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service. September’s tally — the latest month available — was also boosted by hurricane and flood aid, Daniel said on Wednesday. But anti-hunger groups said the economic downturn is the main reason behind the higher figures.

“It’s a disturbing trend,” said Ellen Vollinger, legal director with the Food Research and Action Center. She said she expects more people will turn to food stamps as unemployment figures rise and the economy remains weak.

One in 10 Americans were participating in the food stamp program as of September, said Dottie Rosenbaum, analyst with Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank.

That’s approaching the all-time high of 10.5 percent of the population that used the program in 1994, and is similar to levels seen in the early 1980s, she said.

No doubt the percentage is more than that by now with the massive unemployment numbers we’ve been seeing the past couple months, so the title of this post is probably wrong. But even if it isn’t, this is yet another sign that things aren’t getting better and we’ve probably got a long way to go before they do.

However, let me say this…I think we should all be thankful that we have safety nets like food stamps in this country. And yes, that means your tax dollars are probably paying for somebody else to eat, but I wish more who think that government programs like social security and medicare and food stamps are wasteful would realize that they’re vital to keeping a society like ours afloat.

“We’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”
- Sarah Palin quoted in the latest New Yorker

Now, I don’t know about you, but “share in the wealth” certainly sounds exactly like “spreading the wealth.”

Do you think Palin will be asked if she’s a Marxist?

Moving on…

Obviously I’m for Obama, but the following ignorance makes me incredibly queasy…

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry ‘04, Bush ‘00, Dole ‘96, hunter, NASCAR fan…hard for Obama said: “I’m gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He’s gonna be a bad president. But I won’t ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President.”

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. “Well, I don’t know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I’m sick of paying for health insurance at work and that’s why I’m supporting Barack.”

Yes, voters are that clueless, but it goes to show you how intense the mood is against conservative ideas about economics.

What worries me is the complete lack of accountability by Fannie’s and Freddie’s executives, as well as Wall Street investment bankers also now being insured by taxpayers. We’ve created the worst form of socialized capitalism—private gains combined with public losses.

These executives and bankers are among the best paid in all of corporate America. Their organizations are treated as if they’re giant investor-driven private sector entities as long as they’re healthy. But when they start to go down the tubes they become public entities with public responsibilities, and the rest of us have to bail them out.

It’s so depressing to think that these private giants are being bailed out by taxpayers…who have see absolutely ZERO gains from their business dealings and will see absolutely ZERO gains from these bailouts. The only people who benefit from Freddie and Fannie are the shareholders, the employees and especially the top brass who pull down massive bucks to run these companies into the ground.

And yeah, I know that they give people loans, but that means they get people into debt. And sure, it’s a service, but I’m sure they foreclose on people just as much as other lenders do. After all, they’re private companies with the sole purpose of making money and driving that stock price up.

Here’s Reich’s solution…

Herewith a modest proposal: when taxpayers insure a giant entity against loss—Freddie, Fannie, Wall Street investment banks, whatever—the entities must agree that (1) for the duration of the bailout, their top executives cannot receive total annual compensation higher than that received by the president of the United States, and (2) the government gets 5 percent of their current valuation as shares of stock (roughly representing the benefit to their shareholders of the federal insurance). If and when the entities become profitable again, taxpayers are thereby compensated for the risk they’ve taken on.

I think this is a lot more fair than what we have now.

What do you think?

- Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings on CNBC today

Here’s some background:

Last week, it was a $200 billion cash-for-bond swap for the banks.

This week, it was a $200 billion bond-for-bond swap for the big investment houses.

If they keep this up, pretty soon you’ll be able to walk into any Federal Reserve bank and hock that diamond brooch you inherited from Aunt Mildred.

Forget all that nonsense about the Bernanke Fed being too timid or behind the curve. In the face of what is turning into the most serious financial market crisis since the Great Depression, the Fed has been more aggressive and more creative in using its limitless balance sheet — in effect, its ability to print money — than at any time in history.

And yet we can’t get everybody healthcare?

Yes, I know they’re not the same thing, but I’m talking about PRIORITIES here people! We fight endless wars and throw hundreds of billions at reconstruction in other countries, and yet we can’t invest more in education, in infrastructure, in the health of our nation?

We can do better.

What’s sad is that following seems to be yet another example of China being China. They make no apologies for the crazy stuff that they do, and we keep buying their crap because they can make things for us cheaply.

So where’s it gonna stop?

From Press Esc:

The Chinese authorities are forcibly evicting 1.5 million people from their homes in Beijing without compensating them to make way for the Olympics leaving many displaced former residents homeless, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions revealed this week.

According to the Geneva based rights group’s field research, based on Chinese government statements and documents, by April 2007, at least 1.25 million people have already been displaced as a result of urban development linked to the Olympic Games, and unknown numbers of these people were forcibly evicted.

COHRE reported that at least a further 250,000 people are expected to be displaced in the final year before the Olympic Games, resulting in a total of 1.5 million people being displaced in Beijing by August 2008 due to Olympics related development.

Unconscionable. And I find the cartoon above to be sadly fitting.

But dollars to donuts, I bet we’re going to participate in 2008. We shouldn’t, but I bet we will.

There seems to be a movement to characterize the tepid across the board voter polling as an indication that the new legislation is generally unacceptable…or in the extreme, as Minority Leader John Boehner described it after meeting with the president, it is “a piece of shitâ€Â?. While I can comprehend Will’s rationale, I’m inclined to disagree with his subsequent conclusions.

In fact, I view the poll numbers and the lukewarm reactions to this pending legislation as an egg that won’t hatch because it’s been sat on for far too long by an impotent brood of “banty� roosters who have repeatedly placed partisan objectives ahead of pragmatic and prudent policy. What we are witnessing is simply the acknowledgment that reality has come home to roost…and it has been forever altered by the proverbial practice of “head in the sand� hegemony and hypocrisy.

Let me attempt to explain what I mean. First, let’s look at some of the arguments being advanced in George Will’s op-ed piece.

Compromise is incessantly praised, and it has produced the proposed immigration legislation. But compromise is the mother of complexity, which, regarding immigration, virtually guarantees — as the public understands — weak enforcement and noncompliance.

In 1986, when there probably were 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants, Americans accepted an amnesty because they were promised that border control would promptly follow. Today the 12 million illegal immigrants, 60 percent of whom have been here five or more years, are as numerous as Pennsylvanians; 44 states have populations smaller than 12 million. Deporting the 12 million would require police resources and methods from which the nation would rightly flinch. So, why not leave bad enough alone?

Concentrate on border control and on workplace enforcement facilitated by a biometric identification card issued to immigrants who are or will arrive here legally. Treat the problem of the 12 million with benign neglect. Their children born here are American citizens; the parents of these children will pass away.

Were I living in the civil war era, I might conclude that The Reconstruction had commenced…though this time in the form of rewriting history to mask the motives that allowed the 1986 policy to morph into an illegal immigrant incubator. Ask the owner of any small business in operation during this period and they will gladly confirm that the process of worker verification had been given a virtual vasectomy…rendering it harmless, helpless, and hopeless.

Here’s how the Center for Immigration Studies describes the enforcement of the 1986 law:

Enforcement of this measure, intended to turn off the magnet attracting illegals in the first place, was spotty at first and is now virtually nonexistent. Even when the law was passed, Congress pulled its punch by not requiring the development of a mechanism for employers to verify the legal status of new hires, forcing the system to fall back on a blizzard of easily forged paper documents.

And even under this flawed system, the INS was publicly slapped down when it did try to enforce the law. When the agency conducted raids during Georgia’s Vidalia onion harvest in 1998, thousands of illegal aliens â€â€? knowingly hired by the farmers â€â€? abandoned the fields to avoid arrest. By the end of the week, both of the state’s senators and three congressmen â€â€? Republicans and Democrats â€â€? had sent an outraged letter to Washington complaining that the INS “does not understand the needs of America’s farmers,” and that was the end of that.

So, the INS tried out a “kinder, gentler” means of enforcing the law, which fared no better. Rather than conduct raids on individual employers, Operation Vanguard in sought to identify illegal workers at all meatpacking plants in Nebraska through audits of personnel records. The INS then asked to interview those employees who appeared to be unauthorized â€â€? and the illegals ran off. The procedure was remarkably successful, and was meant to be repeated every two or three months until the plants were weaned from their dependence on illegal labor.

Local law-enforcement officials were very pleased with the results, but employers and politicians vociferously criticized the very idea of enforcing the immigration law. Gov. Mike Johanns organized a task force to oppose the operation; the meat packers and the ranchers hired former Gov. Ben Nelson to lobby on their behalf; and, in Washington, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.) (coauthor, with Tom Daschle, of the newest amnesty bill, S.2010) made it his mission in life to pressure the Justice Department to stop. They succeeded, the operation was ended, and the INS veteran who thought it up in the first place is now enjoying early retirement.

The INS got the message and developed a new interior-enforcement policy that gave up on trying to actually reassert control over immigration and focused almost entirely on the important, but narrow, issues of criminal aliens and smugglers. As INS policy director Robert Bach told the New York Times in a 2000 story appropriately entitled “I.N.S. Is Looking the Other Way as Illegal Immigrants Fill Jobs”: “It is just the market at work, drawing people to jobs, and the INS has chosen to concentrate its actions on aliens who are a danger to the community.” The result is clear â€â€? the San Diego Union-Tribune reported earlier this month that from 1992 to 2002, the number of companies fined for hiring illegal workers fell from 1,063 to 13. That’s thirteen. In the whole country.

So when Will states that the problem was “weak enforcement and noncompliance�, he is only offering a superficial view of the problem. The law was sufficient…but the will of the government (executed by elected officials)…tempered by the economic concerns of important constituent groups and the politicians who needed their votes…didn’t exist for long, if at all.

What resulted was a confluence of competing interests that enabled the unbridled and unchecked flow of immigrants into the country. Republicans satisfied their corporate supporters and Democrats tallied the numbers of a rapidly expanding voting block. Keep in mind the relevant dates…from 1986 to 1992 we had a Republican in the White House and from 1992 through 2000, we had a Democratic president…all followed by the seven years of festering and fractional concerns that have plagued the Bush administration’s tenure. So if it wasn’t solely Republican or Democratic malfeasance that defined these years, what was it? Perhaps politicians of all flavors were savoring the perceived spoils?

Read the full article at Thought Theater

From Daily Dish:

It’s also clear that compassionate conservatism is dead. Every single candidate favors reduced taxes and big spending cuts. None, however, is prepared to say that Medicare and Social Security must be on the chopping block. The grand experiment in big-government Republicanism is therefore rhetorically over. Sorry, Mr Gerson – but only one Republican is dumb enough to embrace the bromides of government spending as the cure for all our woes. And he’s got a limit of two terms. That’s a victory of sorts for those of us urging conservatives to abandon their big spending ways. I say “of sorts” because in practice, there’s no sign that any of them, except Paul and possibly McCain, mean a scintilla of what they are saying.

But is it? See, the reason I question this is I’ve been hearing whispers that poverty is going to be a big issue in 2008, and it’s being driven by memeber of the Religious Right…like author of The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren and other evangelicals who are questioning why the movement is so focused on the two wedge issues of abortion and sexuality.

From The Seattle Times:

“There’s a growing constituency in the evangelical movement that says we really do need to broaden our agenda,” said the Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Fla., who last year stepped down as president-elect of the Christian Coalition after the group refused to include climate change and poverty on its agenda. “We need to be not so narrow and combative.” [...]

The next generation will likely be less easily swayed by the right’s mobilization efforts, he added. “Younger evangelicals are slightly less partisan, and they tend to be less scared by secularism,” Wilcox said. “They’re engaging a broader social agenda.”

Last year, pastor Rick Warren, the author of the popular book “The Purpose-Driven Life,” drew the ire of some conservative Christians for inviting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama to an AIDS conference at his Saddleback Church in California.

And 86 evangelicals, including Warren and Florida’s Hunter, backed an initiative on climate change, drawing criticism from James Dobson and other conservatives who oppose Christian involvement on climate issues. Last week, a coalition of evangelical leaders launched an initiative to lobby Congress for immigration reform.

Honestly, I think compassion is alive and well…but government funded compassion from a Republican?

Well…I guess we’ll see…

He was on his bus answering a question about whether our government should spend money to provide condoms in Africa. And then the reporter asked him an excruciatingly simple question.

You will be amazed…

Q: Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?�

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.�

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?�

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.�

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?�

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.�

Seriously, if McCain is this out of touch with the most basic and effective prevention methods for one of the worst diseases known to man, how can we reasonably trust him to make decisions on far less important matters?

Very disappointing to see him imploding like this. But what can you do except stand back and watch the train wreck?

For more on McCain, try these posts:
- McCain Shuns Club For Growth
- McCain Continues Implosion?
- Santorum Says Nay To McCain
- What Is McCain Thinking?
- Chuck Hagel: The John McCain Of 2008?

He is both an African American and the biracial son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother; both a product of the streets of Chicago, where he worked as a community organizer, and a son of the streets of Jakarta, where he played as a kid. Obama is the personification of “both-and.”

That makes him representative of the growing numbers of us who rather smoothly juggle multiple identities. Any African American who speaks differently with black friends than in mixed settings, any college grad who works with his hands among other honest skilled laborers, any Jew like me who has a bizarre sense of homecoming among my neo-Orthodox cousins but feels even more at home at 1 A.M. in snowy Moscow in a bus full of karate students from all over the world, the windows steaming up as the South African team sings an African chant with Japanese words — well, we can relate.

He said his belief that American politics has seen enough “either-or” â€â€? and that he can shift the paradigm to “both-and” â€â€? is what led him to undertake “the risks and difficulties and challenges and silliness of a modern presidential campaign.”

Thus on the question of inner-city poverty and dysfunction, Obama proposes a suite of orthodox solutions â€â€? early childhood education, after-school and mentoring programs, efforts to teach young parents how to be parents. But he also emphasizes personal responsibility: “The framework that tends to be set up in Washington â€â€? which is either the problem is not enough money and not enough government programs, or the problem is a culture of poverty and not enough emphasis on traditional values â€â€? presents a false choice.”

That’s exactly the frustration of so many centrists — our sense that the Right and the Left each have a part of the truth, and they can’t put the two parts together because they’re too busy fighting with each other. When Mike Huckabee, for instance, says the right to life includes the right to basic health care and education, we feel the same relief listening to a Republican as we do to Democrat Obama. The relief of someone being drawn and quartered when the horses pulling in opposite directions are called to a halt.

While more resources are needed, “there is a strong values-and-character component to educational achievement,” Obama said. “To deny that is to deny reality, and I don’t want to cede that reality to conservatives who use it as an excuse to underfund the schools. … Sometimes people think that when we talk about values, that somehow that’s making a ‘lift yourself up by your own bootstraps’ argument and letting the larger society off the hook. That’s why I always emphasize that we need both individual responsibility and mutual responsibility.”

The cultural values of “educational achievement and delayed gratification and intergenerational responsibility and hard work and entrepreneurship” produce success, he said, but “if a child is raised in a disorderly environment with inadequate health care and guns going off late at night, then it’s a lot harder to incorporate those values. We as a society can take responsibility for creating conditions in which those cultural attributes are enhanced.” [...]

“We’ve learned that it was a good thing to break down the gender barriers that were keeping women from fully participating in the society; on the other hand, it turns out that things like marriage and fidelity are actually good things,” he said.

Robinson observes that Obama is not the first to say these things: “[N]o message gets through without the right messenger and the right moment. Not everyone is convinced that Obama is that messenger.” It is, however, the combination of the message and the messenger, who not only embodies it but has an unusual facility for articulating it, that is so appealing. When Obama gave the 2004 convention keynote speech that launched him into the political stratosphere, what struck me about it was his ability to express complex ideas with clarity, which has the effect of not just respecting but flattering the listener’s intelligence: what he’s saying isn’t oversimplified, yet you understand it so clearly that you feel smart, and you feel that he knows you’re smart. Robinson describes this nicely:

That’s the way Obama talks, by the way, in sinuous but precise sentences that practically diagram themselves as they go along.

It’s this rhetorical skill, combined with his appeal to those of us with multiple identities and the chameleonlike ability his own multiple identities give him to speak to many different singular identities in their own languages — that makes up Obama’s political whammy.

Read the whole column, and see who doesn’t think it’s Obama’s time.