Georgia on my mind

…and South Ossetia, and Abkhazia, and Russia, too.

Russian Prime Minister Putin has sent his military to attack Georgia, whose president angered “Pootie-Poot” through his pro-American policies. The US response has been limited to protests from President Bush.

Isn’t this what the US always does? Encourage democracy abroad, only to refrain from actually offering help to the budding Sons of Liberty when armed conflict arises? We backed out on supporting anti-Castro rebels at the Bay of Pigs. We wouldn’t step in when the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. And when Shiites rebelled against Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War of 1991, we watched the dictator we had just defeated wipe out the uprising.

And how apt that this occurs during an Olympics in China, when the US chose to support the Communist government instead of a pro-democracy uprising in Tienanmen Square, and Americans watched the tanks liquidate the demonstrators.

I read the coverage — beleaguered Georgians seeking a savior asked, “Where is the US?” The paradox of our power is that we feel compelled to praise democracy everywhere, yet support it stingily when it actually arises. “Speak loudly and carry a small stick” might be our motto.

It is prudent to limit our military intervention to wars in which we have a legitimate interest. But it shows our leaders to be such damned cowardly hypocrites. A little less Woodrow Wilson and a little more Niccolo Machiavelli, Mr. Bush.

Presidential Pyrotechnics

Ways to spend July Fourth: Go to the Esplanade in Boston to watch the Pops concert and subsequent fireworks. Or debate the actions of our presidential candidates, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain. Why not do both? That’s what Bob and Susannah, plus a neutral cat, do on their Independence Day in the latest episode of “Running Gags”!

Doc Rivers ‘endorses’ Obama

After guiding his team to an NBA championship over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday, Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers discussed the victory on WEEI-AM (850). Asked whether his team could repeat, Rivers invoked a motto associated with Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president.
Rivers and Obama are two African-American leaders who have enjoyed success this year. The Celtics, during their history, showed progressive thinking on race relations. Thanks to the late team patriarch Red Auerbach, the Celtics became the first in the NBA to draft an African-American player (Chuck Cooper) and hire an African-American coach (Bill Russell). This commitment to equality will prove a more enduring testament to Celtic excellence than Tuesday night’s victory over the Lakers (though it was remarkable to watch the 131-92 romp).

Grassley, health insurance, and greenbacks

Call this month a split decision for Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. The Midwesterner struck a blow for transparency when his probe revealed that three Harvard researchers had taken millions of dollars from Big Pharma, raising conflict-of-interest concerns. “Under pressure,” the New York Times wrote, ”two of the researchers acknowledged receiving $1.6 million apiece in consulting fees from drug companies between 2000 and 2007 and the third reported earning more than $1 million.” (Merci, Muse, for first mentioning the New York Times editorial that addressed the subject.)

Alas, Grassley has shown he’s not immune to financial shenanigans. The American Spectator has revealed that he’s prone to directing public dollars toward the Hawkeye State through generous earmarks. “Due in large part to Grassley’s spending savvy,” the AmSpec noted, a report from the group Citizens Against Government Waste ”put Iowa, 30th in terms of population, 16th in overall earmark spending.” While this may delight Grassley’s constituents, it contributes to imbalance at national spending levels. The senator should heed the wise Latin words Medice, teipsum: Physician, heal thyself!

Sex not in these Cities

What’s in a name … of a hit TV series turned blockbuster cinematic event?

There will be no public ads for the movie version of “Sex and the City” in two Israeli cities, Jerusalem and Petah Tikva. Why? Some folks who saw the ads didn’t like the use of the word “sex.”

Is this a sign that what some people call the lone democracy in the Middle East is using some most un-democratic censorship? Should we instead view it as behavior to emulate, given what neo-Puritans like myself see as an unbecoming American obsession with X-rated affairs?

I enjoyed what Vogue magazine called SATC:TM. It was great to see Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha return on the big screen. I give it two thumbs up … or, alternately, two Manolo Blahniks up.

I can also see how the movie’s depiction of sex would upset the haredim in Eretz Yisrael, as well as people across the US who are concerned with family values and their potential threat by risque behavior on the screen. Maybe the action of the two Israeli cities contains not just censorship, but courage.

 

$3.59 a gallon?

Gas prices are going up, folks, and two presidential candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain, have proposed a solution: a gas-tax holiday. But, Susannah wants to know, what about more environmentally-friendly alternatives? Read more — including Bob’s response and an homage to my own greater Boston MBTA — in the latest episode of “Running Gags”!

Hillary borrowing against time?

Sen. Hillary Clinton is lucky she has over $6 million to lend to her campaign. Clinton seems to think her campaign needs the cash after a double-digit primary loss to her rival, Sen. Barack Obama, in North Carolina on Tuesday and an underwhelming victory over Obama in Indiana the same day. Clinton, the New York Times reports, is fixated on her goal of winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

“[Advisers] to Mrs. Clinton early Wednesday portrayed her as still confident that she can win the nomination through a combination of victories in the handful of remaining primaries and persuading uncommitted superdelegates that she can perform better against Republicans than Mr. Obama,” the Times reported on Wednesday.

There are six primaries left, beginning with West Virginia next Tuesday. Prospects look dim at best and humiliating at worst, but maybe we should have expected that for a politician who’s weathered Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky and impeachment, mounting a struggling political campaign is a cinch.

The subprime saga

The New York Times reports a new chapter in the mortgage crisis: Our government is concerned with a bulwark of the mortgage industry, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

What seems like the central issue to this story is the American dream of owning a home. Owning a home means no more dependence on paying rent to a landlord (instead it means dependence on mortgage payments to a bank), and the freedom to own one’s own patch of land (subject to city zoning regulations, property taxes, neighbors with complaints…).

Problem is, by making home ownership a priority – for both the Bush Administration and voices of the left – the government has created two problems. First, it has intruded into the free market — which generally I’m all for, in terms of stopping capitalist excesses, but in this case, the NYT reports, “if Fannie or Freddie fail, taxpayers would probably have to bail them out at a staggering cost.”

Second, home ownership represents another battle in the class struggle. Who wants to pay $200 grand for a house? Who can afford thousand-dollar mortgage payments in addition to car payments, gas-station trips, student-loan bills and health insurance? Yet here our cutthroat capitalism is running up against a sentimentality toward letting everyone, rich or poor, share in the American dream of home ownership. Quoth Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee: “I want these companies to help with affordable housing, to help low-income families get loans and to help clean up this subprime mess … Otherwise, why should they exist?”

Bush has tried to prove that conservatism could be compassionate. The mortgage meltdown, including the woes of Fannie and Freddie, seems a result of trying to test whether capitalism could be compassionate, too.

Wal-Mart makes Obama ‘Scream’

Sen. Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate, has lost the Pennsylvania primary to his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, after Obama called certain red-state voters “bitter” to a San Francisco audience. What can Obama do to mend relations with this demographic group? As he explains to Susannah, Bob has some ideas — which include visiting a certain blue-state nemesis — in the latest episode of “Running Gags”!

Hillary borrows from Lenin’s playbook

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is not quitting the presidential election, and has one more primary victory to add to her total: Pennsylvania, which she won on Tuesday.

Once the star of the almost 800 superdelegates, Clinton’s hold over them may be diminishing as she can’t win convincingly enough to erase the lead of her rival, Sen. Barack Obama (Note: She still leads Obama in superdelegates who have declared their support, 259 to 236). But as calls mount for her departure, she doesn’t seem to be listening.

It was once said of Vladimir Lenin that he won debates by refusing to stop speaking until everyone, exhausted, conceded the argument. “Lenin scarcely noticed his defeat,” Robert K. Massie wrote in Nicholas and Alexandra. “A brilliant dialectician, prepared to argue all night, he gained ascendancy over his Bolshevik colleagues by sheer force of intellect and physical stamina.” Will Clinton’s similar steadfastness outlast Obama’s audacity?