The House of Representatives rejects the $700 billion bail-out plan
From The Economist (Editorial)
IT WOULD have been one of the most unpleasant laws that Congress had found itself writing so close to an election. Devoting $700 billion of taxpayers’ money to rescuing the country’s least popular industry was clearly not a vote winner. That Democratic and Republican congressional leaders held their noses this weekend and came up with the Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act was encouraging evidence that they appreciate the gravity of the financial crisis. But with a vote of 228 to 205, the House rejected it. World stockmarkets promptly slumped. At one point the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen than 700 points, its biggest intraday drop ever. The oil price slumped by $10 to less than $97 a barrel.
The House voted against the bill despite the best efforts of the two candidates to be president. “This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with,” John McCain had said. Barack Obama had added that “What we can't do is do nothing.” As it stood on Monday, that was precisely what the House had chosen to do. The White House issued a statement expressing its severe disappointment and promising to get an economic team together to consider its next steps. It remains possible that the House will vote again. The Senate had been due to vote later in the week.
The bill had been widely expected to pass. Legislators from both parties wrung concessions from Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, to provide necessary political cover. But voters seemed unconvinced. In a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted on September 24th just 22% favoured Mr Paulson’s proposal while 56% wanted something different; only 11% preferred that no action be taken.
By legislative standards Congress moved at light speed after Mr Paulson and Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, proposed action on September 18th, warning of serious doom and gloom if nothing were done. In the past week the financial crisis has erupted in even more dangerous forms globally. The interbank-funds market has seized up and even the most creditworthy corporate and financial firms are paying punitive rates. Last week Washington Mutual became the largest-ever American bank to fail. In Europe, three countries had to come to the rescue of Fortis, a Belgian banking group, and Britain did the same with a mortgage lender, Bradford & Bingley. And on Monday Citigroup agreed to buy most of the assets of Wachovia, another beleaguered American bank, in a deal brokered by regulators.
The new law would have provided the Fed with an additional tool for combating the latest stage of the crisis: from October 1st it would have paid interest on reserves that banks maintain at the Fed. This would have let it pump almost unlimited cash into the money market without fear of interest rates falling to zero, Japanese-style.
Mr Paulson or his successor would have been given $250 billion immediately, $100 billion more at the president’s discretion and $350 billion upon Congress’s approval. The Troubled Asset Relief Programme, or TARP, would be allowed to buy mortgage-backed securities, whole loans (those not bundled into pools) and, in consultation with the Federal Reserve chairman, anything else necessary to stabilise the financial system. That includes taking control of entire companies. Mr Paulson said on Sunday that would get the power to avert “the potential systemic risk from the disorderly failure of a large financial institution,” implying the ability to bail-out a company while punishing its owners, as was done with Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG. Given the frequency with which institutions are collapsing, he would have been keen to invoke that power soon.

Breakthrough Reached in Negotiations on Bailout
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and CARL HULSE NY TIMES
WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders and the Bush administration reached a tentative agreement early Sunday on what may become the largest financial bailout in American history, authorizing the Treasury to purchase $700 billion in troubled debt from ailing firms in an extraordinary intervention to prevent widespread economic collapse.
Officials said that Congressional staff members would work through the night to finalize the language of the agreement and draft a bill, and that the bill would be brought to the House floor for a vote on Monday.
The bill includes pay limits for some executives whose firms seek help, aides said. And it requires the government to use its new role as owner of distressed mortgage-backed securities to make more aggressive efforts to prevent home foreclosures.
In some cases, the government would receive an equity stake in companies that seek aid, allowing taxpayers to profit should the rescue plan work and the private firms flourish in the months and years ahead.
The White House also agreed to strict oversight of the program by a Congressional panel and conflict-of-interest rules for firms hired by the Treasury to help run the program.
The administration had initially requested virtually unfettered authority to operate the bailout program. But as they moved toward clinching a deal, both sides appeared to have given up a number of contentious proposals, including a change in the bankruptcy laws sought by some Democrats to give judges the authority to modify the terms of first mortgages.
Congressional leaders and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. emerged from behind closed doors to announce the tentative agreement at 12:30 a.m. Sunday, after two days of marathon meetings.
“We have made great progress toward a deal, which will work and be effective in the marketplace,” Mr. Paulson said at a news conference in Statuary Hall in the Capitol.
In the final hours of negotiations, Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, carried pages of the bill by hand, back and forth, from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, where the Democrats were encamped, to Mr. Paulson and other Republicans in the offices of Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader.
At the same time, a series of phone calls was taking place, including conversations between Ms. Pelosi and President Bush; between Mr. Paulson and the two presidential candidates, Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama; and between the candidates and top lawmakers.
“All of this was done in a way to insulate Main Street and everyday Americans from the crisis on Wall Street,” Ms. Pelosi said at the news conference. “We have to commit it to paper so we can formally agree, but I want to congratulate all of the negotiators for the great work they have done.”
In a statement, Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, said: “We’re pleased with the progress tonight and appreciate the bipartisan effort to stabilize our financial markets and protect our economy.”
A senior administration official who participated in the talks said the deal was effectively done. “I know of no unresolved open issues for principals,” the official said.
In announcing a tentative agreement, lawmakers and the administration achieved their goal of sending a reassuring message ahead of Monday’s opening of the Asian financial markets.
Lawmakers, especially in the House, are also eager to adjourn and return home for the fall campaign season.
Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain both expressed support for the rescue package early on Sunday, while adding that it was hardly a moment for taxpayers to cheer.
“This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with,” Mr. McCain said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “The option of doing nothing is simply not an option.”
Mr. Obama, in a statement, said: “When taxpayers are asked to take such an extraordinary step because of the irresponsibility of a relative few, it is not a cause for celebration. But this step is necessary.”
The backing of the presidential candidates will be crucial to Congressional leaders seeking to generate votes for the bailout plan among lawmakers, especially those up for re-election in November. The general public has bristled at the notion of risking $700 billion in taxpayer funds to address mistakes on Wall Street, and many constituents have urged their elected officials to vote against the plan.
Among the last sticking points was an unexpected and bitter fight over how to pay for any losses that taxpayers may experience after distressed debt has been purchased and resold.
Democrats had pushed for a fee on securities transactions, essentially a tax on financial firms, saying it was fitting that they contribute to the cost.
In the end, lawmakers and the administration opted to leave the decision to the next president, who must present a proposal to Congress to pay for any losses.
Officials said they had also agreed to include a proposal by House Republicans that gives the Treasury secretary an additional option of issuing government insurance for troubled financial instruments as a way of reducing the amount of taxpayer money spent up front on the rescue effort.
The Treasury would be required to create the insurance program, officials said, but not necessarily to use it. Mr. Paulson had expressed little interest in that plan, and initial cost projections suggested it would be enormously expensive. But final details were not immediately available.
Saturday’s intense negotiating effort followed a tumultuous week, including a contentious meeting at the White House with President Bush and the two presidential candidates.
That meeting had moments of drama, including a blunt warning by President Bush. “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” he said. It ended with angry recriminations after House Republicans scotched a near-agreement from earlier in the day.
Mr. Paulson scrambled to revive the talks, and they resumed almost immediately. Congressional and Treasury staff then worked all of Friday and through the night, ending in the predawn.
Mr. Paulson and Congressional leaders stepped in at 3 p.m. Saturday and were in direct negotiations for most of the rest of the night. And immediately after the news conference, staff members began efforts to finalize the language.
Even then, their work is hardly over.
Congressional leaders who want the bailout to pass with solid bipartisan support had already begun to anxiously court votes, mindful of the difficulty they could face in a high-stakes election year.
Public opinion polls show the bailout plan to be deeply unpopular. Conservative Republicans have denounced the plan as an affront to free market capitalism, while some liberal Democrats criticize it as a giveaway to Wall Street.
Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the chief negotiator for House Republicans, who have been among the most reluctant to support the plan, expressed some satisfaction but did not commit his members’ support.
“We need to look and see where we are on paper tomorrow,” Mr. Blunt said. “We have been talking about how we can make these things work in a way that our conference can come together.”
Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the lead negotiator for the House Democrats, said that there was no expectation of making anyone smile.
“This was never going to be a bill that was going to make people happy,” he said. “No solution to a problem can be more elegant than the problem itself. We are dealing with a very difficult problem.”
“Given the dimensions of the problem, I believe we have done a good job,” he added. “It includes genuine compromises.”
Aides described a tense meeting on Saturday afternoon that included Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, shouting at Mr. Paulson about executive pay caps.
Outside, stunned tourists visiting the Capitol watched as camera operators shoved one another to get footage of lawmakers talking outside of the meeting room.
At one point, when too much information was leaking out, staff members’ BlackBerrys were confiscated and collected in a trash bin.
While Congressional Republicans sent only their chief negotiators, Mr. Blunt and Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, at least nine Democrats with competing priorities piled into the meeting, surprising the Republicans but apparently not unsettling them.
The centerpiece of the rescue effort remains the plan for the government to buy up to $700 billion in troubled assets from financial firms as a way to free their balance sheets of bad debts and to help restore a healthy flow of credit through the economy.
The money will disbursed in parts, with an initial $250 billion to get the rescue effort under way, followed by another $100 billion upon a report by Mr. Bush to Congress.
The president could then request the balance of $350 billion at any time. If Congress disapproved, it would have to act within 15 days to deny the Treasury the money.
Early in the day, the two presidential nominees were active from the sidelines. Mr. McCain telephoned Congressional Republicans to sound them out, and Mr. Obama got regular updates by phone from Mr. Paulson and top lawmakers.
Some lawmakers have made clear that they will not vote for the bailout plan under virtually any terms. “I didn’t want to be in the negotiations because I object to the basic principles of this,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, who would normally be his party’s point man.
Pressed about his role, Mr. Shelby replied, “My position is ‘No.’ “
Officials, including Mr. Bush, stepped up efforts to sell the plan to the American public, which, according to opinion polls, is deeply skeptical.
“The rescue effort we’re negotiating is not aimed at Wall Street; it is aimed at your street,” Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address. “There is now widespread agreement on the major principles. We must free up the flow of credit to consumers and businesses by reducing the risk posed by troubled assets.”
In a brief speech on the Senate floor, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said: “It’s not just going to be Wall Street. The chairman of the Federal Reserve has told us if the credit lockup continues, three million to four million Americans will lose their jobs in the next six months.”
The ultimate cost of the rescue plan to taxpayers is virtually impossible to know. Because the government would be buying assets of value — potentially worth much more than the government will pay for them — there is even a chance the rescue effort would eventually return a profit.
Some Democrats had sought to direct 20 percent of any such profits to help create affordable housing, but Republicans opposed that and demanded that all profits be returned to the Treasury.
Jeff Zeleny and Robert Pear contributed reporting.

From The Times
This is the election you wouldn't want to win
The bad news: November's victor could be a one-term disaster. The good news: a great president may follow him
Gerard Baker
Victorious Roman generals were reminded of the fickleness of their glory by a slave carefully positioned in earshot on the triumphal parade route.
“Memento mori,” the hapless servant would whisper to the wreathed victor as his chariot rattled along Rome's jubilant streets: “Remember you are mortal.”
They don't have slaves in America any more but perhaps the winner of November's presidential election should consider having one of his lower-paid deputy-assistants mutter something similar in his ear as he takes the tribute on Inauguration Day next January.
It is highly probable that that moment, the very hour that he takes office, will be the high point of his presidency. Whoever wins on November 4 will be ascending to the job at one of the most difficult times for an American chief executive in at least half a century. When the votes are counted his people might ruefully conclude that the victor is not Barack Obama or John McCain. The real winner will be Hillary Clinton, or Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, or some now happily anonymous figure whose star will rise in the next four turbulent years.

2008 may be the best year there has been to lose an election.
This sobering reality was startlingly underscored this week by none other than Tom Daschle, the former leader of the Senate Democrats, the national co-chairman of Mr Obama's presidential campaign, and the likely White House chief of staff in an Obama administration. He told a Washington power breakfast that he thought the winner of the election would have a 50 per cent chance at best - at best - of winning a second term in 2012.
Consider the challenges.
The financial crisis and Washington's response to it have transformed the economic and fiscal environment in which the new president will take office.
The bailout/rescue plan/ socialisation of the banking system - whichever you prefer - has, in effect, already rendered null and void almost everything that the presidential candidates have been proposing for the past six months. It may not end up adding a straight $700 billion to the deficit over the next couple of years - the Treasury is surely right to insist that it will get some of that money back when the bad assets acquired from banks are sold off. But it would certainly not be prudent to expect there to be any room left over for promised tax cuts, spending increases on health, education or anything else.
The US already faced daunting fiscal challenges (admittedly smaller than those confronting most European and Asian countries). At some point reality will bite hard and politicians will discover that they simply cannot go on funding two wars, cutting taxes, creating vast new government health and pension programmes and doing the other essential things that the Federal Government does - all those bridges and roads and light-rail systems in parts of the country with closely fought congressional districts.
As some observers have noted, the bailout plan may simply have shifted the locus of the next financial crisis from the private to the public sector. This fiscal challenge is not just economic, but also geopolitical in nature. More government debt increases America's dependence on the financial interest of strangers; and not just any foreigners, but countries that hardly count as America's friends, such as China and Russia.
All this, and we almost certainly haven't even seen the worst of economic times yet.
For the past six months there's been a rather pointless debate in the US about whether the country is or is not in a “technical” recession, whatever that is. What is certain is that unemployment has risen and real incomes have declined, but now it seems that things are getting much worse. Yesterday - in one day - economic reports said that durable goods orders, everything from aeroplanes to television sets, dropped by more last month than in any month in almost two years; that jobless claims rose to their highest level since September 11, 2001; and that new home sales fell to their lowest in 17 years.
The US is now indisputably entering the darkest phase of a period that will not only produce real hardship, but could send further shocks through financial markets and cause deeper fiscal damage.
Then there is energy policy. Weaning America off its oil addiction might actually need to be a policy rather than a slogan in the next four years; but that will place new burdens on the budget and require sacrifices difficult to make in good times, let alone in economically distressed ones.
Compared with all this, foreign policy looks like a doddle.
The next president has only to complete the process of transition in Iraq, win the war in Afghanistan, face down a resurgent Russia, continue to keep its foot on the throat of stateless Islamist terrorism, stop Iran from going nuclear and figure out what to do about the challenge from China - the most serious threat to US global hegemony since America became top nation.
Oh, and I didn't mention Pakistan. Conversations this week with advisers to both campaigns suggest that both now see Pakistan - especially after last week's terrorist attack in Islamabad - as perhaps the most intractable and serious challenge of all in the next few years: they candidly admit that no one has much of a clue what to do about it.
You don't have to loathe President Bush to acknowledge that America's capabilities and standing in the world are seriously diminished at a time when its tasks are larger and more complex than they have been in decades. With its economic wherewithal now further impaired, the prospects for real success anywhere in the next four years look constrained.
Yet all this might be too gloomy a prognosis. Previous periods of apparently existential crisis in the US have certainly produced one-term disasters: James Buchanan in 1857, Herbert Hoover in 1929, Jimmy Carter in 1977 spring unpleasantly to mind. But the genius of America is that apocalyptic challenges have also, in time, produced the men to match them: Abraham Lincoln in 1861, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, Ronald Reagan in 1981.
So perhaps, rather than simply assuring us that the man who wins in November is a sure loser, history suggests an unsettlingly binary possibility. Either the next president is destined for the cruel obscurity of one-term failure. Or he is set to join the pantheon.
Then again, look carefully at those dates and consider a crueller possibility for this year's winner: that desperate times like these actually produce both types of president, sequentially: a one-term disaster who paves the way for a true giant.

America’s bail-out plan
The doctors' bill
From The Economist
The chairman of the Federal Reserve and the treasury secretary give Congress a gloomy prognosis for the economy, and propose a drastic remedy
AMERICAN congressmen are used to hyperbole, but they were left speechless by the dire scenario Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, painted for them on the night of September 18th. He “told us that our American economy’s arteries, our financial system, is clogged, and if we don’t act, the patient will surely suffer a heart attack, maybe next week, maybe in six months, but it will happen,” according to Charles Schumer, a Democratic senator from New York. Mr Schumer’s interpretation: failure to act would cause “a depression”.

The arithmetic of crisis
When the loans to AIG and Bear Stearns assets are added in, the gross public backing so far approaches 6% of GDP, well above the 3.7% of the savings-and-loan bail-out in the late 1980s and early 1990s (see chart 3). That would still be much less than the average cost of resolving banking crises around the world in the past three decades, which a study by Luc Laeven and Fabian Valencia, of the IMF, puts at 16%. One reason why bail-outs, especially in emerging markets, have been so costly is inadequate safeguards against abuse, says Gerard Caprio, an economist at Williams College. “There was a lot of outright looting going on.”
The Congressional Budget Office had pegged next year’s federal budget deficit at more than $400 billion, or 3% of GDP. Private estimates top $600 billion. Tack on $700 billion and various other crisis-related outlays and the total could reach 10% of GDP, notes JPMorgan Chase, a level last seen in the second world war. On September 22nd the euro made its largest-ever advance against the dollar on worries that America might one day inflate its way out of those debts. Such fears are compounded by the expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet. Some even think that the burden of repairing a broken financial system could place the dollar’s status as the world’s leading reserve currency in jeopardy.
The consequences will probably not be so far-reaching. The true cost to taxpayers is unlikely to be anywhere near $700 billion, because many of the acquired mortgages will be repaid. The expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet reflects a fear-induced demand for cash, which drove the federal funds rate above the 2% target.
It is more likely that the programme will not go far enough. Conscious of the public’s deep antipathy to anything that smacks of favours for Wall Street, politicians from both parties have insisted that the protection of the taxpayer be paramount. Yet the point of bail-outs is to socialise losses that are clogging the financial system. If taxpayers are completely insulated from losses, the bail-out will probably be ineffective. “The ultimate taxpayer protection will be the market stability provided,” Mr Paulson argues.
This is especially critical in deciding how the government will set the price for the assets it purchases. An impaired mortgage security might yield 65 cents on the dollar if held to maturity. But because the market is so illiquid and suspicion about mortgage values so high, it might fetch just 35 cents in the market today. Recapitalising banks would mean paying as close to 65 cents as possible. Those that valued them at less on their books could mark them up, boosting their capital. On the other hand, minimising taxpayer losses would dictate that the government seek to pay only 35 cents. But this would provide little benefit to the selling banks, and those that carried them at higher values on their books could see their capital further impaired.
To some, that would be fine. “If they choose to fail rather than sell their debt at its real market value and record the loss on the books, they should be free to take that option,” said Michael Enzi, a Republican senator from Wyoming. The failure of smaller regional banks may be tolerable. The FDIC offers a proven system for coping with failed entities (although it too may need a loan from the taxpayer) and other banks are keen to snap up their deposits. But the final result of big-bank failures would be a deeper crisis and a bigger cost in lost economic output.
Similarly, requiring participating banks to give the government warrants or cap their executives’ salaries might make them less willing to take part. Veterans of the emerging-markets crises of the 1990s say their effectiveness would have been crippled had their ability instantly to deploy cash as they saw fit been compromised. “There is far more risk that the authorities will have too little flexibility…than there is risk that they will have too much authority,” says Lawrence Summers, a former treasury secretary.
A more serious criticism is that buying assets is an inefficient way to recapitalise the banking system. Better, many argue, to inject cash directly into weakened banks. A dollar of new equity could support $10 in assets, reducing the pressure to deleverage. Moreover, since the price of banks’ shares are less arbitrary and more homogeneous than those of illiquid mortgage securities, the process would be far more transparent, says Doug Elmendorf of the Brookings Institution. But banks might not volunteer to sell equity to the government before they reach death’s door; and the prospect of share dilution could discourage private investors. In any event, the Treasury plan could be flexible enough to permit such capital injections.
But will it work?

There have been several false dawns since the crisis began in August of last year. This could be another. The TARP may address the root cause, namely house prices and mortgage defaults, but the crisis has long since mutated. “The same underlying phenomenon that we saw in housing we’re seeing in auto loans, in credit-card loans and student loans,” says Eric Mindich, head of Eton Park Capital Management, a hedge fund. The crisis could claim another institution before the TARP’s effect is felt.
The TARP could conceivably slow the resolution of the crisis by stopping property prices and home ownership falling to sustainable levels. Some homeowners who are up-to-date with payments but whose home is worth less than their mortgage may stop paying, betting the federal government will be a more forgiving creditor. The Treasury is considering using the TARP to write down mortgages to levels that squeezed homeowners can afford. But in the meantime, buyers might be reluctant to step in while a big inventory of government-owned property hangs over the market. That’s one reason Japan’s many efforts to bail out its banks failed to revitalise its economy: the institutions that took over the loans were hesitant to dispose of them for fear of pushing insolvent borrowers into bankruptcy, says Takeo Hoshi of the University of California at San Diego.
All the same, the TARP is likely to mark a turning-point. “It promises to break the vicious circle of deleveraging in the mortgage market,” predicts Jan Hatzius, an economist at Goldman Sachs. This does not mean the economy will soon rebound, but it does suggest the worst scenarios will be averted. If the TARP helps banks and investors establish reliable prices for mortgage securities, it could restart lending and help bring the housing crisis to an end.
This will not come without a price. The unprecedented intrusion of the federal government into the capital markets seems certain to be accompanied by a heavier regulatory hand, something on which both Barack Obama and John McCain now agree.
Even without new rules, more of the system will be regulated because so much of it has been absorbed by banks, which are closely overseen. Sheila Bair, chairman of the FDIC, thinks this is a good thing. Banks were relative pillars of stability because of their insured deposits and the regulation that accompanied it. Although some banks have failed, she notes that other banks, not taxpayers, will pay the clean-up costs. Now that institutions like money-market funds are caught by the federal safety net even though that was never intended, they can expect to pay for it.
Yet predictions of a sea change towards more invasive government are premature. The Depression witnessed a pervasive expansion of the federal government into numerous walks of life, from trucking and railways to farming, out of a broadly shared belief that capitalism had failed utterly. If Mr Paulson and Mr Bernanke have prevented a Depression-like collapse in economic output with their actions these past two weeks, then they may also have prevented a Depression-like backlash against the free market.

fighting words
Is Obama Another Dukakis?
Why is Obama so vapid, hesitant, and gutless?By Christopher HitchensUpdated Monday, Sept. 22, 2008, at 12:17 PM ET
Last week really ought to have been the end of the McCain campaign. With the whole country feeling (and its financial class acting) as if we lived in a sweltering, bankrupt banana republic, and with this misery added to the generally Belarusian atmosphere that surrounds any American trying to board a train, catch a plane, fill a prescription, or get a public servant or private practitioner on the phone, it was surely the moment for the supposedly reform candidate to assume a commanding position. And the Republican nominee virtually volunteered to assist that outcome by making an idiot of himself several times over, moving from bovine and Panglossian serenity about the state of the many, many crippled markets to sudden bursts of pointless hyperactivity such as the irrelevant demand to sack the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
And yet, and unless I am about to miss some delayed "groundswell" or mood shift, none of this has translated into any measurable advantage for the Democrat. There are three possible reasons for such a huge failure on Barack Obama's part. The first, and the most widely canvassed, is that he is too nice, too innocent, too honest, and too decent to get down in the arena and trade bloody thrusts with the right-wing enemy. (This is rapidly becoming the story line that will achieve mythic status, along with allegations of racial and religious rumor-mongering, if he actually loses in November.) The second is that crisis and difficulty, at home and abroad, sometimes make electors slightly more likely to trust the existing establishment, or some version of it, than any challenger or newcomer, however slight. The third is that Obama does not, and perhaps even cannot, represent "change" for the very simple reason that the Democrats are a status quo party.
To analyze this is to be obliged to balance some of the qualities of Obama's own personality with some of the characteristics of his party. Here's a swift test. Be honest. What sentence can you quote from his convention speech in Denver? I thought so. All right, what about his big rally speech in Berlin? Just as I guessed. OK, help me out: Surely you can manage to cite a line or two from his imperishable address on race (compared by some liberal academics to Gettysburg itself) in Philadelphia? No, not the line about his white grandmother. Some other line. Oh, dear. Now do you see what I mean?
Why is Obama so vapid and hesitant and gutless? Why, to put it another way, does he risk going into political history as a dusky Dukakis? Well, after the self-imposed Jeremiah Wright nightmare, he can't afford any more militancy, or militant-sounding stuff, even if it might be justified. His other problems are self-inflicted or party-inflicted as well. He couldn't have picked a gifted Democratic woman as his running mate, because he couldn't have chosen a female who wasn't the ever-present Sen. Clinton, and so he handed the free gift of doing so to his Republican opponent (whose own choice has set up a screech from the liberals like nothing I have heard since the nomination of Clarence Thomas). So the unquantifiable yet important "atmospherics" of politics, with all their little X factors, belong at present to the other team.
The Dukakis comparison is, of course, a cruel one, but it raises a couple more questions that must be faced. We are told by outraged Democrats that many voters still believe, thanks to some smear job, that Sen. Obama is a Muslim. Yet who is the most famous source of this supposedly appalling libel (as if an American candidate cannot be of any religion or none)? Absent any anonymous whispering campaign, the person who did most to insinuate the idea in public—"There is nothing to base that on. As far as I know"—was Obama's fellow Democrat and the junior senator from New York. It was much the same in 1988, when Al Gore brought up the Dukakis furlough program, later to be made infamous by the name Willie Horton, against the hapless governor of Massachusetts who was then his rival for the nomination.
By the end of that grueling campaign season, a lot of us had got the idea that Dukakis actually wanted to lose—or was at the very least scared of winning. Why do I sometimes get the same idea about Obama? To put it a touch more precisely, what I suspect in his case is that he had no idea of winning this time around. He was running in Iowa and New Hampshire to seed the ground for 2012, not 2008, and then the enthusiasm of his supporters (and the weird coincidence of a strong John Edwards showing in Iowa) put him at the front of the pack. Yet, having suddenly got the leadership position, he hadn't the faintest idea what to do with it or what to do about it.
Look at the record, and at Obama's replies to essential and pressing questions. The surge in Iraq? I'll answer that only if you insist. The credit crunch? Please may I be photographed with Bill Clinton's economic team? Georgia? After you, please, Sen. McCain. A vice-presidential nominee? What about a guy who, despite his various qualities, is picked because he has almost no enemies among Democratic interest groups?
I ran into a rather clever Republican operative at the airport last week, who pointed out to me that this ought by rights to be a Democratic Party year across the board, from the White House to the Congress to the gubernatorial races. But there was a crucial energy leak, and it came from the very top. More people doubted Obama's qualifications for the presidency in September than had told the pollsters they had doubted these credentials in July. "So what he ought to do," smiled this man, "is spend his time closing that gap and less time attacking McCain." Obama's party hacks, increasingly white and even green about the gills, are telling him to do the opposite. I suppose this could even mean that Sarah Palin, down the road, will end up holding the door open for Hillary Clinton. Such joy!Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and a media fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Newsweek Co. LLC

Absurd

Andrew Sullivan (London Times)
For the past two weeks serious commentators and columnists have been asked to take the candidacy of Sarah Palin for the vice-presidency of the United States seriously.
Formerly sane people have written of the McCain campaign’s selection of this running mate as if it represents a new face for Republicanism, an emblem of can-do western spirit, a brilliant ploy to win over Clinton voters, a new feminism, a reformist revolution, and a genius appeal to the religious right.
I’m afraid I cannot join in. In fact I cannot say anything about this candidacy that takes it in any way seriously. It is a farce. It is absurd. It is an insult to all intelligent people. It is a sign of a candidate who has lost his mind. There is no way to take the nomination of Palin to be vice-president of the world’s sole superpower - except to treat it as a massive, unforgivable, inexplicable decision by someone who has either gone insane or is managerially unfit to be president of the United States. When, at some point, the hysteria dies down, even her supporters will realise that, by this decision, McCain has rendered himself unfit to run a branch of Starbucks, let alone the White House.
The announcement of Palin was made more than two weeks ago. It took a fortnight for her to agree to sit down for an intimate interview of the kind usually reserved for Hollywood stars instead of the press conference typical of a new vice-presidential candidate. This has never happened in American political history. Even Dan Quayle, the least qualified vice-presidential nominee before Palin, and a man who did not know how to spell “potato”, gave a press conference a day after the convention in 1988.
There have been two explanations for this astonishing Putin-style decision to keep a vice-presidential candidate from the press. The first was that the press would be too mean to her and needed to show, in campaign manager Rick Davis’s word, sufficient “deference” before they would be allowed to ask her a question. Deference? Is 21st-century America an 18th-century monarchy? The press owes such a total unknown who could be president next January deference?
The second explanation is that she needed time to cram for the exam. The McCain camp knew she had never expressed any views about foreign policy. And the only time she had on record was to oppose the surge that is the centrepiece of McCain’s campaign. They knew she knew nothing and was utterly unqualified to be president at a moment’s notice. And so she spent the last week furiously prepping. As Maureen Dowd noticed, she is Eliza Doolittle to John McCain’s Henry Higgins.
But at the end of last week we were granted an audience with the Princess of Alaska. It was painful. She had no idea what the Bush Doctrine was – the central and most controversial foreign policy innovation of the past eight years: the doctrine of preemption against states with WMDs. Moreover, in her speech the same day, she described the war in Iraq. She said her eldest son, who has just enlisted, would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans”.
Does Palin believe that the men who planned and carried out the 9/11 attack are in Iraq? The hijackers are all dead, but Bin Laden and Zawahiri and the rest of the gang are, as far as we know, in Pakistan. Nobody believes they are in Iraq.

Neoconservatives plan Project Sarah Palin to shape future American foreign policy

Neoconservatives whose influence had been waning in Washington have hitched their colours to rising star Sarah Palin in a bid to shape US foreign policy for another decade.

 

By Tim Shipman in Wasilla, Alaska 

Last Updated: 12:30PM BST 13 Sep 2008

Comments by the governor of Alaska in her first television interview, in which she said Nato may have to go to war with Russia and took a tough line on Iran's nuclear programme, were the result of two weeks of briefings by neoconservatives.

Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin.

Her case as John McCain's running mate was later advanced vociferously by William Kristol, the magazine's editor, who is widely seen as one of the founding fathers of American neoconservative thought - including the robust approach to foreign policy which spurred American intervention in Iraq.

In 1988, Mr Kristol became a leading adviser of another inexperienced Republican vice presidential pick, Dan Quayle, tutoring him in foreign affairs. Last week he praised Mrs Palin as "a spectre of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism" that "is haunting the liberal elites".

Now many believe that the "neocons", whose standard bearer in government, Vice President Dick Cheney, lost out in Washington power struggles to the more moderate defence secretary Robert Gates and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, last year are seeking to mould Mrs Palin to renew their influence.

A former Republican White House official, who now works at the American Enterprise Institute, a bastion of Washington neoconservatism, admitted: "She's bright and she's a blank page. She's going places and it's worth going there with her."

Asked if he sees her as a "project", the former official said: "Your word, not mine, but I wouldn't disagree with the sentiment."

Pat Buchanan, the former Republican presidential candidate and a foreign policy isolationist, who opposes the war in Iraq, the project most closely associated with the neocons, said: "Palin has become, overnight, the most priceless political asset the movement has.

"Look for the neocons to move with all deliberate speed to take her into their camp by pressing upon her advisers and staff, and steering her into the AEI-Weekly Standard-War Party orbit." The AEI, or American Enterprise Institute, is a free-market think-tank with many neo-cons among its members.

In the two weeks since she was named as Mr McCain's running mate that is just what has happened. While Mr McCain was publicly distancing himself from the policies and personalities of the Bush administration, Mrs Palin was sequestered with a series of former aides to George W. Bush.

Mr McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, an influential neoconservative, wasted no time in briefing Mrs Palin. He quickly made Steve Biegun, a former number three on the National Security Council, her chief foreign policy adviser.

Steven Clemons, of the New American Foundation think tank in Washington, a chronicler of the ebb and flow of neocon power in the White House, bemoaned the appointment, saying Mr Biegun "will turn her into an advocate of Cheneyism and Cheney's view of national-security issues."

Eyebrows were also raised when, on the Tuesday after her selection, Mrs Palin was ushered into the company of AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobby group in Washington.

In her first television interview, she was on message, agreeing with Mr McCain that Israel has the right to take military action against Iran if necessary. "I don't think that we should second-guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security," she said.

Jacob Heilbrunn, author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, said the interview was "further evidence that she has soaked up the neocon view of the world." He was particularly alarmed by her suggestion that war with Russia is "perhaps" a possibility.

"The neocons surrounded Dan Quayle, with William Kristol becoming his main tutor. Now both McCain and Palin are being closely advised by neocons. Far from being chastened by the Iraq debacle, the neocons are now poised for their moment of greatest influence." Mr Buchanan has predicted Mrs Palin will become a major player for years to come.

"In choosing Palin, McCain may also have changed the course of history," he said. "Should this ticket win, Palin will eclipse every other Republican as heir apparent to the presidency and will have her own power base, wholly independent of President McCain."

Here's the kind of speech Sen. Obama should give in 2008
President Truman's Address at Dexter, Iowa, on the Occasion of the National Plowing Match
September 18, 1948 Mr. President, and all the good farmers who are responsible for this wonderful demonstration:It does my heart good to see the grain fields of the Nation again. They are a wonderful sight. The record-breaking harvests you have been getting in recent years have been a blessing. Millions of people have been saved from starvation by the food you have produced. The whole world has reason to be everlastingly grateful to the farmers of the United States.In a very real sense, the abundant harvests of this country are helping to save the world from communism. Communism thrives on human misery. And the crops you are producing are driving back the tide of misery in many lands. Your farms are a vital element in America's foreign policy. Keep that in mind, that is of vital importance to us and to the world.And while I am on that subject--I know that the war talk which is so prevalent today is causing all of you deep concern. It is plain enough that we are facing a very disturbing international situation. I should like every American to realize that this country is making every possible effort to preserve the peace.In this critical situation, my motto has been: "Keep your temper and stand firm." We have kept our tempers. We have stood firm. And we have been reasonable and straightforward at all times.It is the policy of this Government to continue working for peace with every instrument at our command. At the same time, we have been rapidly building up our strength. The peace of the world and the prestige of the United States require that the Nation be strong and vigilant.But that is not the main point I wish to cover today. In addition to the issue of peace, there is another important reason why this is a critical period for America. I am talking about our economic future--your economic future.Will this Nation succeed in keeping its prosperity ? Will it preserve its high standards of living next year, and the year after, and the year after that ?I know of only one way to get assured prosperity. That is by cooperation of agriculture with labor, cooperation of agriculture and labor with business, large and small.When these groups work together in a common cause, this country can achieve miracles. We saw that during the war. We saw it before the war. By common effort, in the last 15 years, every group in the Nation steadily increased its income. Our people rose from despair to the highest living standards in the history of the world.So long as the farmer, the worker, and the businessman pull together in the national interest, this country has everything to hope for.But it is terribly dangerous to let any one group get too much power in the Government. We cannot afford to let one group share the Nation's policies in its own interest, at the expense of the others.That is what happened in the 1920's, under the big business rule of the Republicans. Those were the days when big corporations had things their own way. The policies that Wall Street big business wanted were the policies that the Republicans adopted. Agriculture, labor, and small business played second fiddle, while big business called the tune.Those were the days of Republican high tariffs--tariffs which penalized the American farmer by making him pay high prices for manufactured goods, while he was receiving low prices for his crops.You remember the results of that Wall Street Republican policy. You remember the big boom and the great crash of 1929. You remember that in 1932 the position of the farmer had become so desperate that there was actual violence in many farming communities. You remember that insurance companies and banks took over much of the land of small independent farmers--223,000 farmers lost their farms.That was a painful lesson. It should not be forgotten for a moment.Since then the farmer has come a long way. The agricultural program of the Democratic administration in 16 years has enabled farmers to attain decent standards of living. Interest rates on farm credit have been sharply brought down. Farm mortgage indebtedness has been reduced by more than 50 percent. Farm mortgage foreclosures have almost disappeared. In 1947 the smallest number of farm foreclosures in the history of the country took place.All this was done under a Democratic administration.Today the world needs more food than ever before. There is every reason for the American farmer to expect a long period of good prices--if he continues to get a fair deal. His great danger is that he may be voted out of a fair deal, and into a Republican deal.The Wall Street reactionaries are not satisfied with being rich. They want to increase their power and their privileges, regardless of what happens to the other fellow. They are gluttons of privilege.These gluttons of privilege are now putting up fabulous sums of money to elect a Republican administration.Why do you think they are doing that? For the love of the Republican candidate? Or do you think it is because they expect a Republican administration to carry out their will, as it did in the days of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover?I think we know the answer. I think we know that Wall Street expects its money this year to elect a Republican administration that will listen to the gluttons of privilege first, and to the people not at all.Republican reactionaries want an administration that will assure privilege for big business, regardless of what may happen to the rest of the Nation.The Republican strategy is to divide the farmer and the industrial worker--to get them to squabbling with each other--so that big business can grasp the balance of power and take the country over, lock, stock, and barrel.To gain this end, they will stop at nothing. On the one hand, the Republicans are telling industrial workers that the high cost of food in the cities is due to this Government's farm policy. On the other hand, the Republicans are telling the farmers that the high cost of manufactured goods on the farm is due to this Government's labor policy.That's plain hokum. It's an old political trick. "If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'era." But this time it won't work.The farmer and the worker know that their troubles have been coming from another source. Right here I would like to cite you an example of the situation that they were faced with not so long ago. In 1932, under the Republicans, we had 12,500,000 unemployed, with average hourly wages at 45 cents, and we had 15 cent corn and 3 cent hogs. In fact, you burnt up some of your corn, because you couldn't market it, it was too cheap.Those gluttons of privilege remember one plain fact. Never once during the great crises of the past 50 years have the Wall Street Republican administrations lifted a finger to help the farmer. Wait a minute-wait a minute!--they did once. They gave you a Farm Board. That was their great contribution.How well you must remember the depression of the 1930's! The Republicans gave you that greatest of all depressions, as I said before, when hogs went down to 3 cents, and corn was so cheap you were burning it up.All through this country, the American farmer and worker have been the victims of boom and bust cycles--with accent on the bust, especially for the farmers and the workers. And they have suffered alike in these misfortunes.I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who's hitting you? It's about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them.Why is it that the farmer and the worker and the small businessman suffer under Republican administrations and gain under Democratic administrations?I'll tell you why. It is the result of a basic difference in the attitude between the Democratic and the Republican parties.The Democratic Party represents the people. It is pledged to work for agriculture. It is pledged to work for labor. It is pledged to work for the small businessman and the white-collar worker.The Democratic Party puts human rights and human welfare first.But the attitude of the Republican gluttons of privilege is very different. The bigmoney Republican looks on agriculture and labor merely as expense items in a business venture. He tries to push their share of the national income down as low as possible and increase his own profits. And he looks upon the Government as a tool to accomplish this purpose.These Republican gluttons of privilege are cold men. They are cunning men. And it is their constant aim to put the Government of the United States under the control of men like themselves. They want a return of the Wall Street economic dictatorship.You have had a sample of what the Republican administration would mean to you. Two years ago, in the congressional elections, many Americans decided that they would not bother to vote. Well, others thought they would like to have a change. And they brought into power a Republican Congress-that notorious "do-nothing" 80th Republican Congress.Let us look at the results of that change. This Republican Congress has already stuck a pitchfork in the farmer's back.They have already done their best to keep the price supports from working. Many growers have sold wheat this summer at less than the support .price, because they could not find proper storage.When the Democratic administration had to face this problem in the past, the Government set up grain bins all over the wheat and corn belts to provide storage.Now the farmers need such bins again. But when the Republican Congress rewrote the charter of the Commodity Credit Corporation this year, there were certain lobbyists in Washington representing the speculative grain trade--your old friend.These big-business lobbyists and speculators persuaded the Congress not to provide the storage bins for the farmers. They tied the hands of the administration. They are preventing us from setting up storage bins that you will need in order to get the support price for your grain.When the farmers have to sell their wheat below the support price, because they have no place to store it, they can thank this same Republican 80th Congress that gave the speculative grain trade a rake-off at your expense.The Republican reactionaries are not satisfied with that. Now they are attacking the whole structure of price supports for farm products.This attack comes at a time when many farm prices are dropping and the price support program is of the greatest importance to the farmer.The Democratic Party originated the farm support program. We built the price support plan out of hard experience. We built it for the benefit of the entire Nation--not only for the farmer, but for the consumer as well.Republican spokesmen are now complaining that my administration is trying to keep farm prices up. They have given themselves away. They have given you a plain hint of what they have in store for you if they come into power. They are obviously ready to let the bottom drop out of farm prices.The purpose of price support is to prevent farm prices from failing to ruinously low levels. Every consumer should realize that these supports apply only when farm prices have dropped below parity.The Government is not now supporting the price on major food items such as meats, dairy products, and poultry.The Government has just begun to support the price of wheat, which has dropped from around $3 a bushel to about $2 a bushel.This support price has nothing to do with the price the consumer is paying for bread.Now, listen to this! When wheat prices were going up, the price of bread rose steadily. It went up from 10 cents a loaf to 11 cents--to 12 cents a loaf--to 13 cents--to 14 cents.Now, wheat prices have fallen a dollar a bushel. But the price of bread has come down not one cent!There you have the policy of the reactionary big business. Pay as little as you can to the farmer, and charge the consumer all he can bear. That is a fair sample of what the Republican reaction has meant to you in the past 2 years--to you, and to every consumer, in the cities and on the farms.When the Republicans claim that the wheat price supports are to blame for the high price of bread, they are trying to stir up the city consumer against the farmer by downright dishonesty.The truth of the matter is that by encouraging the record production of the last few years, the support program has actually kept the consumer prices down.Those who are willfully trying to discredit the price support system don't want the farmers to be prosperous. They believe in low prices for farmers, cheap wages for labor, and high profits for big corporations.These are the facts the people need to know. I am going to keep hammering away at the facts until the whole country rings with the truth about these gluttons of privilege.The record of the Republican 80th Congress is one long attack on the welfare of the farmer.Under the Democratic administrations since 1933, the Government sponsored the great soil conservation program which helped to lay the foundations for the present prosperity of the American farmer. But that "do-nothing" Republican 80th Congress, under the false mask of economy, cut and threatened to kill the soil conservation program. You people here know best the importance of soil conservation to American agriculture. You bet you do! You know what the reactionary attack on soil conservation will cost the farmer if we let the Republicans have their own way.At every point the Republican 80th Congress did what the speculative grain lobby wanted it to do.They have killed the International Wheat Agreement, which would have assured the American wheat growers a large export market for 5 years at fair prices.They started a move to put a death-tax on farm cooperatives.They ruled out the grain bins that help make the ever-normal granary effective.They have invited a depression by refusing to curb inflation.And now they are attacking the farm support program.The Wall Street Republicans are not worrying about whether you like it or not. Their political wiseacres have assured them that the farmer has fallen back into his old habit of voting Republican, whatever happens. The Republicans are saying, "Don't worry about the farm vote. It's in the bag."So long as you had a good year once in a while, you would be satisfied. So they thought. And so they think today.You and I know they're making a big mistake. From what I have seen, the farmers of this country have their eyes open. You're not going to be fooled again by the slick propaganda of Wall Street.In only 2 years, with only the Congress under their control, the Republicans were able to weaken your position gravely.Well, imagine what would happen if they were to get both the Congress and the Presidency for 4 years. What they have taken away from you thus far would be only an appetizer for the economic tapeworm of big business.Your best protection is to elect a Democratic Congress and a President that will play fair with the farmer--an administration that will reinforce soil conservation, provide adequate storage facilities for grain, encourage production, and help the farmer make enough on his crop to meet the cost of living, and have something left over.I don't need to tell you how long it takes to get a good crop, and how big the dangers are. You can work a year, plowing and cultivating, and then at the last minute, a sudden drought or flood can wipe you out. You all know how terrible these disasters of nature can be.Now you are faced with the danger of another kind of disaster--a man-made disaster bearing the Republican trademark. For 16 years the Democrats have been working on a crop of prosperity for the farmer. We have been plowing, and seeding, and cultivating the soil of the American economy in order to get a crop of prosperity that you have been enjoying for the past several years.The question is: Are you going to let another Republican blight wipe out that prosperity?I have reminded you of the evils wrought by the Republican administrations in recent times. But my purpose has not been merely to bring up the past. I am trying to point the way to a healthy future. The Democratic Party is looking forward, not back. We are planning to aid the farmers of America meet their pressing problems and avoid catastrophe.Today farmers are faced with the threat that markets will fail to keep up with their production. The reactionary Republican answer is to let prices crash to the bottom. But the Democratic Party has a constructive way of preventing such a collapse.We are reaching out to develop world markets that will absorb production above America's own needs. Scientific research is discovering more and newer uses for farm products. We know that the world can absorb the farmers' output, if the right conditions are created, and we are working to insure continued prosperity for American agriculture.The Democratic Party is fighting the farmer's battle. We believe that farmers are entitled to share equally with other people in our national income. We believe that a prosperous and productive agriculture is essential to our national welfare.But the Democratic Party does not stand in defense of he farmer alone. It stands forthe people of the United States--the farmer, the industrial worker, and the white-collar worker.Our intentions are made clear by our deeds. In this 20th century, every great step forward has come during Democratic administrations of the National Government. Every movement backward has come under Republican auspices, and it is the people who have paid dearly for these reactionary moves.Too much is now at stake--here and throughout the world--to take the wrong path now.There is one way to stop the forces of reaction.Get every vote out on election day, and make it count. You can't afford to waste your votes this year.I'm not asking you just to vote for me. Vote for yourselves! Vote for your farms! Vote for the standard of living that you have won under a Democratic administration!Get out there on election day, and vote for your future!NOTE: The President spoke at 12:30 p.m. before an audience of over 80,000 persons. His opening words "Mr. President" referred to Herb Plambeck, Director of the National Plowing Contest. The address was carried on a nationwide radio broadcast.For the President's later informal remarks at the scene of the plowing match, see Item 194 [8].

Provided courtesy of The American Presidency Project. John Woolley and Gerhard Peters. University of California, Santa Barbara.

From the London Times
The day America was born again
Nothing Sarah Palin and her followers can do will prevent America's steady movement away from social conservatism
Justin Webb
It doesn't matter who wins! Seriously, guys, America is about to become, once again, the coolest place on Earth.
An era is ending. If you still think the US is home to all that is fatty and unwholesome and militaristic and cloth-eared and generally low-grade, and not much else, it may be time to give the Yanks another chance.
Politically, socially, culturally, America is - as we watch transfixed and, in spite of ourselves, impressed - being born again.
Suddenly we are reminded of why 55 million people have chosen to come to America in the roughly 400 years since that journey became possible. We are reminded of why Americans are so deeply, annoyingly, attached to their nation and their system. We are reminded of how vibrant that system can be.
It works! America's political recrudescence did not begin in 2008. The fag-end of the Reagan era (which, as Barack Obama has correctly suggested, lasted through the Clinton years) probably staggered to a close in the early days of Bush's second term. The denouement involved the President in his pyjamas, the social conservatives on their high horses and the courts in the role the Founding Fathers intended: reining in the mob.
To be precise; at one o'clock in the morning of March 21, 2005, President Bush put pen to paper and (inadvertently) consigned the politics of the Eighties to the trash.
He had been woken by his staff to sign emergency legislation designed to save the life of Terri Schiavo. Mrs Schiavo was the Florida woman who had suffered a catastrophic heart attack and brain damage and was being kept alive with feeding tubes. Her husband wanted them removed, her parents did not.
It went to Florida's courts and the judges were persuaded that Terri would have wanted to die: they found for the husband. Fatefully, the social conservatives - in their pomp so they thought - decided to go for broke. They challenged the courts, and challenged the nation: let us rebuild America in the image of social conservatism.
So Congress passed a Bill bringing the case to the federal courts (in the Senate not a single vote was cast against it) and the pyjama-wearing President signed it. Surely the moment had come for the faithful to taste victory; for America to be transformed into a nation fit for the morally righteous.
It never happened. The federal courts backed the local courts (impeach them, the politicians cried, but nobody tried) and the Supreme Court yawned and raised an eyebrow and refused even to hear the case. Terri Schiavo was allowed to die. And in opinion poll after opinion poll most Americans felt, with sadness but with conviction as well, that the courts had been right.
And something stirred. Americans are deeply religious but they are also deeply attached to the idea that folks can get on with their lives unmolested by government. When the two clashed, freedom won. The Strange Death of Social Conservatism as the driving force in US politics was under way. 2006 confirmed it: a thumping, the President called it, as the midterm election results returned Democrats to power in Congress, delivered the first-ever defeat to a state ballot initiative that would have banned gay marriage (in Arizona) and approved state funding of stem-cell research in, of all places, Missouri.
Nothing the voters decide this November will change this dynamic. Not even the fantastic Mrs Palin - the Iron Lady of Alaska - who is on the Republican ticket to serve a purpose but not, frankly, to serve in office. Mrs Palin's views are certainly of the hard-line Religious Right but the party is not intending that they become policy and the party would be destroyed if they did.
The idea (which Mrs Palin backs) that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest was tried out on the people of South Dakota recently. South Dakota is no friend of abortion but even these conservative voters nixed the plan.
No, America is changing and a new era is beginning: a post-Reagan era in which social conservatism (galvanising Republicans and terrifying Democrats) is replaced as the driving force in US politics by...
Well, we don't know. And it may take some time for us to be sure of what it is, and for the winning ticket to work it out. After all, the great eras in American politics begin and end messily and they are not driven necessarily by a change of party; more by a change of national cultural mood.
One of the emerging features of American life at the moment - perhaps a political driver in years to come - is the desire for modernisation. In the world's economic powerhouse there is a fear of falling behind. In fact there is an awareness that America is falling behind.
It's the infrastructure, stupid! The Reagan era (which predated Reagan and probably began with Nixon in 1968) had all manner of effects on the nation, but among the key long-lasting legacies has been a neuralgic reaction to taxation. Many Americans have allowed themselves to think you might be able to run a modern economy on the proceeds from slot machines. As Jim Callaghan once said, in a different context: “I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists!”
Americans hunger for mobile phone networks that work. For rapid transport that whizzes. For bridges that don't fall down. They do not hunger for government but they do hunger for efficiency, for a governing infrastructure that serves a modern economy; for a health system that delivers medicine without bankrupting companies and individuals. Both John McCain and Barack Obama know this. Each is under pressure to deliver.
America is imperfect. It has no divine right to be the world's leading nation. And yet - in this glorious political year - something about it sings.
And as the American Olympic team reminded us when we looked at it and wondered at its multicolour, multi-ethnic vibrancy (more than 30 members were born abroad) this nation is ours. There is nothing wrong in wishing it well.
Justin Webb is the author of Have a Nice Day - Behind the Clichés: Giving America Another Chance. He is the BBC's North America editor

World's Biggest Physics Experiment Moves Closer to Completion
By Art Chimes (Voice of America) Washington, DC 08 September 2008

The biggest science experiment on Earth is expected to take a big step forward on Wednesday. As we hear from VOA's Art Chimes, an international team of scientists is getting ready to fire up the Large Hadron Collider, even as skeptics fear it could have disastrous consequences.

Technician on work platform inspects the massive CMS detector, which tracks particle collisions at CERN's Large Hadron Collider

Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known by its French acronym, CERN, are planning to send a beam of particles racing around the 27-kilometer ring of the Large Hadron Collider for the first time.

The LHC, as it's known, is the world's most powerful particle accelerator. CERN physicist Tejinder Virdee says it's designed to explore some of the most fundamental questions in physics.

"At the end of this, it is possible that our view of nature, of how the nature works at the fundamental level, would be altered in the same way, for example, that Einstein had altered our view of space and time about 100 years ago," he said. "So the scientific results could be extremely important."

The Large Hadron Collider is housed in a circular tunnel, buried under the French-Swiss border just outside Geneva.

Beams of subatomic protons and other particles will zip around the ring, accelerated up to nearly the speed of light by some 1,800 superconducting magnet systems.

Protons will reach an energy level of 7 trillion electron volts, seven times more powerful than in any existing accelerator. The project has cost an estimated $5.8 billion.

When the LHC goes into full operation, scientists will aim beams of particles directly at each other. When particles collide — up to 600 million times a second — special sensors will detect and record the collisions, and a network of computers will analyze the vast amount of data generated.

It's designed in part to mimic conditions present at the beginning of the universe, the Big Bang, almost 15 billion years ago.

Researchers will also be looking for a subatomic particle known as the Higgs Boson. The Standard Model of particle physics predicts that it exists… but it has never been seen. CERN physicist Mike Seymour says the elusive Higgs Boson has a nickname that conveys its importance.

"People call it 'God's particle' because it really has a very important central role in our whole theory of what everything is made of, of matter," Seymour explained. "Because without the Higgs particle we wouldn't be able to understand why any of the elementary particles have masses. The more we discover about the Higgs mechanism, the more we will understand about the dynamics of the early universe."

As scientists and technicians prepare to send a particle beam all the way around the LHC, some critics have wondered whether attempts to reproduce conditions at the beginning of the universe may create a black hole that could destroy the Earth.

A CERN team that studied the matter concluded there was no danger of that happening, and lawsuits filed by opponents have not succeeded in stopping work on the LHC.

CERN physicist John Ellis says simply, the skeptics are wrong. "LHC is only going to reproduce what nature does every second, it has been doing for billions of years, and all of these astronomical bodies including the earth and the sun, they are still here. So there really is no problem."

Well, let's hope not. The first beam of particles is set to make that 27-kilometer trip around the Large Hadron Collider on Wednesday.

From The Sunday Times

September 7, 2008

This cynical choice has left McCain’s honour in shreds

Minette Marrin

I’m an American, California born. It’s true my mother was English and that I was brought up here from early childhood and think myself exceptionally lucky to belong here; I feel as English as I think anyone possibly can. Yet all the same, America is the land of my forebears on my late father’s side. I would even qualify to be a Daughter of the American Revolution, since one of my ancestors in North Carolina fought in the American war of independence. My grandmother travelled as a little girl in a covered wagon in the Wild West with my great-grandfather, who was an army officer. I have close family living in America still, and I have the right to vote there.

So I have always felt a strong sentimental attachment to the United States. I’ve felt proud of American achievements and generosity, and resented the unthinking antiAmericanism everywhere in Europe, ever since the first child in the playground of my first school shouted at me “Yanks go home”. Admittedly the spectacle of electioneering is a painful test of anyone’s respect for the United States. In their ghastly harrumphing electoral extravaganzas the Americans show themselves at their worst - vulgar, venal, naive, dishonest, stupid, wasteful, tasteless and vicious. Priggish though it may sound, I prefer to ignore these periods of national hysteria; after all, politics is nasty everywhere, it’s just that America does everything in extremes.

But last week everything changed. John McCain’s choice of Governor Sarah Palin was the last straw. It makes American politics look like a sick comedy. My faith in my native country had already been shaken by other elections and by other wrongs, such as the Iraq war (which I at first supported, to my shame). But the moose-hunting pitbull with lipstick is too much. I have never used my vote in the past, but if I had, I would usually have voted Republican. Today no rational conservative can vote for the Palin and McCain ticket. It makes America an international laughing stock. The fact that there has been a Palin bounce, after her charismatic speech, fills me with dismay.

This has little to do with Palin’s views. I disagree passionately with some of them, but the Republicans are entitled to present any views they choose to the electorate. Nor do I share the objections to Sarah Barracuda of the liberal sisterhood; unlike them I don’t in the least object to an ambitious woman being right-wing. I am rather right-wing myself, and Margaret Thatcher is one of my heroines.

Unlike the lily-livered liberal intelligentsia, I admire Palin for being a good shot and a good fisherwoman, and capable of butchering large wild animals in her basement, though I do not share her rather unsporting enthusiasm for shooting wolves out of small aircraft. I admire her for her determination, for her energy and her self-possession. I admire the virtues of small-town and frontier America. As for her grooming and her cunningly chosen glasses, if I don’t admire the results, I do admire the self-discipline and self-respect behind them.

All the same, her selection was a shock. What horrified me was not so much the woman herself, though she is clearly entirely unfit to be vice-president or president. It was McCain’s cynical and sudden choice of her. Would you give power of attorney over your entire life to someone you had only met once, or possibly twice? Of course not. You would give the matter and the person very serious consideration. Yet McCain in effect is offering power of attorney over all the affairs of the United States and over all Americans, including me, to a woman he had barely met. I myself wouldn’t hire a house-sitter on such scant acquaintance.

Palin herself may not know what a vice-president is for, but McCain surely must. He must know that a vice-president needs to be someone the president can trust and rely on and work with. Such a person is not easy to find, even when highly qualified in other ways. It takes time. It’s a personal matter, a question of psychological fit and mutual understanding.

Obviously McCain’s public relations people have been scouring the country for libertarian babes. But politics is not painting by numbers. McCain doesn’t know Palin at all, nor it seems did his vetting people; revelations keep emerging about her all the time. But he showed himself willing to hand the free world over to a stranger because his people think she is a psephological paragon.

I had thought that McCain was, for a politician, an honourable man. Certainly honour is one of his top selling points. But who can think so now? In choosing a woman he doesn’t know or understand, purely for electoral advantage, he reveals a dishonourable lust for office, a disrespect for women generally and a dishonourable indifference to the future of his country. After all, if this known unknown woman does become president, it will almost certainly be because he himself is dead - quite possible given his age and health - and past caring.

Though he didn’t know Palin personally, he must have known a few facts about her. He must have known that she compares feebly with previous vice-presidential candidates. Her education is minimal, her real political and managerial experience very slight. The only previous woman candidate for vice-president, the Democrat Geraldine Ferraro, was well qualified, well educated and experienced; Palin can’t hold a candle to her. Palin’s experience is as nothing compared to that of Dick Cheney (congressman, secretary of defence and White House chief of staff), Al Gore (senator and congressman) or George Bush Sr (congressman, ambassador to the United Nations and China, head of the CIA). Being a vice-president is not just a matter of PR and homespun rhetoric, or used not to be.

Even a brief consideration of Palin might suggest that she is not the straightforward redneck hockey mom she claims to be. It’s not possible to be much of a mom to five children, including a baby with Down’s syndrome, if you have a more than full-time job. Like other people with working responsibilities, you have to hand your children over to someone else to bring up. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it denies you the right to exploit your image as a yummy downhome mummy.

In short Palin is an ill-educated, inexperienced hypocrite. The Republicans are trying to sell her to the voters as something she isn’t, and McCain hardly cares what she is. It’s a bad day for my native land.