Cowboy Confessional

Much has been said about Barack Obama’s association with William Ayers, a certified terrorist who in the 1960’s sought to blow up offices and employees of the U.S. government. Most speculation has been about Obama and his views on Ayers.

Obama claims he knew nothing about Ayers unsavory past despite having sat on boards of directors together and Ayers having made his own living room available to launch Obama’s initial campaign into politics. It is conceivable (though barely) that Obama was ignorant of Ayers’ violent past and revolutionary disgust for the U.S. Obama’s assertion is greatly diminished by the fact that there are no strangers in Chicago politics. Everyone advances through connections. A Chicago candidate doesn’t stand a Chinaman’s Chance of winning an office without connections.

What pundits and politicos have failed to articulate is that it is Ayers’ view of Obama that is important. Ayers gave his time, money and home to insert Obama into the political mainstream. Ayers wanted Obama to succeed. This says much about Obama because Ayers would not risk his Chicago political credibility on someone that wasn’t going to push Ayers’ agenda.

Ayers hates America, tried to violently overthrow it, and from all reports has not materially changed his attitude in 40 years. This means Ayers’ believes Obama will help achieve what Ayers and the Weathermen were unable to do with explosives.

Obama might not know Ayers … but Ayers knows Obama. Now we know the game in play.

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Irony should be classified as a life style. It may be the missing element — the fundamental substance that unites humanity.

That and religious stupidity.

With all Western eyes turned to Islam and the radical extremes therein, we stare gape-mouthed at some of the odder interpretations of that faith. Indeed, aggressive practitioners in the Taliban and the Saudi Commission for the Protection of Virtue and Prevention of Vice would provide us non-stop belly laughs were humans not being maimed and killed. These packs of Gawd’s self-appointed spokesmen make American Shiite Christians look positively saintly by comparison.

The Middle East is where extremism meets blood and comedy. It appears that some Israelis have adopted the norms of their Islamic neighbors. Haredim hostility to secular sensibilities has whelped “modesty patrols” who engage in hot home invasion, public stoning and torching storefronts where MP4 players might tempt the downloading or porn.

What’s next, Kristallnacht in Karmiel?

Though not a ministry within the Keneset, the Israeli government provides wink-and-nod approval of modesty patrols in order achieve what all politicians crave — a secure voting block. As long as religious violence is only wrought upon people in Orthodox neighborhoods (including those passing through) the government sees advantage in allowing Abrahamic assaults.

Especially assaults against women and doubly so against those who dare to wear red. One poor gal in a crimson top was cursed, spat upon and stoned for the offense of being colorful. Heaven help a gay man wearing a rainbow tunic in Tel Aviv.

Ironic then is the contrast between these Jewish fundamentalist who are under perpetual assault by Islamic fundamentalist because both groups despise the color red, unless of course it is from the spilled blood of their enemies.

The Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is particularly persnickety about ruby hues and rectitude. They recognize red as the color of passion and routinely remove red merchandise from stores as Saint Valentine’s Day approaches. Like their Jewish counterparts, Saudi’s Virtue and Vice Squad enforces dress codes, segregates sexes, and beats women guilty of being seen in public with unrelated men.

Some claim the Palestinians are the Lost Tribe of Israel, but Islam was born in the desert through which the Jews may have wandered, undoubtedly leaving behind a few Hebrew stragglers. If their descendant’s demeanors are any indication, Moses and Mohamed may be related.

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Who would have thought that the Vice Presidential debate would have been the most entertaining and civil of this election cycle.

I did not have high hopes for civility. Joe Biden threw the first firebomb of the debate on the second question asked. Worse still his firebomb was an out-of-context parrot point of a sound bite that made Old Joe look trite. Palin parried with the ease she failed to show when chatting with Katie Couric. Palin countered Biden’s assault with kindness. She then hijacked the Obama campaign’s “change” theme repeatedly using the word “new”.

I think this opening rhetorical artillery exchange shook Biden and he never recovered.

Palin then did something Biden can’t, namely play the Mom card. She spoke at a personal level that likely connected with average people despite sounding a bit canned. The topic in this round was how the sub-prime mortgage mess came about, and Palin exposed the foolishness of some home buyers who purchased houses and chose mortgages that were way beyond their means. Biden countered claiming that a lack of government regulation was the cause. This tiny tit for tat clearly demarked their political philosophies — the divide between individual responsibility and government paternalism.

The former won, or at least that is what a live focus group hosted by Fox News indicated. This group of equally divided Blues and Reds wielded devices they dialed to express their (dis)agreement with the speaker. When Palin spoke on personal and government responsibility, everyone in the room agreed with her in the 90% range.

That will be very dangerous to the Obama campaign.

The Democrat perspective showed through again as Biden lobbied for their “rob the rich” tax plan expressing nearly open anger (I may be reading too much into this moment of the debate — Biden always looks angry). Joe appeared nasty while Palin came across as sympatric to the condition of The People, poor and rich. Biden responded by diving headlong into a convoluted number-dump on health care costs. He lobbed scare tactic statistics like verbal hand grenades in a blunt attempt to frighten swing voters.

Anger, fear, and robbery. What a winning combo. Obama may be dialing Hillary’s cell phone to ask if it is too late to reconsider his choice in running mates.

One recurring observation: Biden is spooky. He has sudden facial expression changes, switching from a snarl to an overplayed smile, to a frown in less time than it takes Bill Clinton to unzip. He came off looking schizophrenic and manic, two qualities nobody wants in a man with his a finger on the ICBM launch button.

Palin spent time discussing solutions and political philosophy. Biden spent his time slinging mud. Palin was able to rattle off world leader names and articulate foreign policy talking points with ease, which is counter to the pre-game analysis by politicos. She surprised many people, especially Biden.

The big shock was that Palin distanced herself from the Bush administration, flatly stating that the Bushies made massive blunders. No nuance — Bush bumbled. Biden repeatedly tried to tie McCain to Bush but his attempts were ham-handed and fell flat. Joe delivered these lines in the same way that linebackers dance ballet. When Biden claimed the U.S. General in charge of the Afghanistan campaign said a “surge” would not work, Palin debunked and dunked Biden — and he was visibly shaken.

Palin’s only tactical error was closing the debate by saying that the main stream media would filter the debate results. This may well be true but even if the MSM is in the tank for Obama, it never helps to pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel and own satellite uplink ground stations.

I won’t claim that Palin won the debate, but she held her own and showed that she is more than ready to be a Vice President. Joe proved nothing. You do the scoring from there.

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Mohan caught me by surprise.

Mohan is my taxi driver. He works the early mornings, taking hard travelers like myself to the airport. Every cab I’ve called for an o-dark-thirty departure resulted in Mohan arriving at my door.

Mohan is a Sikh, a member of a religious minority that had the bad sense of blending Hinduism and Islam and thus making enemies of both. Sikhs are common target practice in India, which helps to explain why they make up only 2% of that country’s population. It also explains why they always wear a smile in the United States — very few people are trying to kill them here. Well, there were a few dim witted folk who saw the Sikh’s customary turbans and in the post 9/11 paranoia beat a few Sikhs senseless.

I wanted Mohan’s opinion on the current financial crisis, fearing that the economic downturn might reduce air travel and thus his fares. Mohan said something that will likely stick in my mind until death (mine, not his).

“Everyone needs health, roof, food. After that money buys wants, not needs.”

That sentiment is dangerously close to Buddhist philosophy, which makes me wonder if the Sikh’s blended three religious disciplines and not just two.

“Health, roof, food.” Profound in simplicity and reminded me of a Jewish friend of mine named Andy. Andy had invested in home town real estate back in the 1980s, and then the local market bottomed out. He could not keep tenants, keep up on his mortgage payments, had properties repossessed and auctioned off, and ran into trouble with the IRS.

Yet he was always upbeat.

I asked him how in the hell he could be chipper given all that had and was happening to him. Andy shrugged and said “Nobody died. Nobody went hungry. Nobody is homeless. Can’t be too bad.”

Health, food, roof. I think I’ll introduce Andy to Mohan. They’d get along very well.

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As talking heads franticly attempt to lay blame on one political party or another for the current financial market meltdown, all have avoided asking what or who ignited the problem. They blame deregulation (wrong), Bush (wrong), the Democrat Congress (wrong, which may be a first).

The mark of Cain is on Alan Greenspan, former head witchdoctor of the Federal Reserve.

For whatever reasons Alan’s alleged mind concocted, Greenspan gathered the firewood, lit the kindling and blew on the flame that now engulfs the global financial markets. Feel free to reserve your place in the long line of people who will queue to piss on his grave.

Greenspan lowered the Federal Funds Rate to historic lows for an extended period of time. From 1954 through 2000, the average Federal Funds Rate was 6.1%. From 2001 to the time Greenspan left office, the average rate was 2.2%. In other words, Greenspan put money into the lending stream at 1/3rd the historic rate, and he did so for more than four years.

Every person and institution (and institutionalized persons including your Congressman) performs risk/reward analysis. Even muggers ponder the odds of being shot by an armed citizen before picking their target. Banks do the same thing. Before they lend money, they assess the risk. Part of the risk equation is “what is the cost of the money I’m lending?” If the cost of money is low, the risk is lowered and thus banks are willing to take bigger chances, including lending to people they otherwise would not.

This is the essence of the sub-prime “let’s lend money to anyone regardless of their credit worthiness” mortgage market. With plenty of cheap money available, lenders took increasingly larger risks. With each new home owner in the market, the housing supply shrank and thus home prices rose. This encouraged banks to lend to even riskier new home owners for even more inflated properties. This reinforcing cycle continued until the riskiest of loans started to default and a reverse chain reaction occurred.

In short, government caused the problem by creating a purely artificial situation. Money cost less than it would in a free market. Cheap money makes people stupid (look at any trust fund child). The Fed was stupid which made banks stupid enough to lend to people too stupid to otherwise risk lending money to.

There is no telling where this fiasco will end, but let history name it well: Greenspan’s Disaster.

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