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If it feels like the 1990’s are back, you are not alone. After O.J. Simpson's return to the headlines - and cable TV - and the resurrection of Hillarycare, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a sudden dirty plaid flannel shirts as Grunge makes a comeback.
And when it comes to politics, there's a 1990’s catch phrase that may once again define the 2008 Presidential contest: “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Conventional wisdom says that the 2008 election will be determined by one issue: the war in Iraq. Will Americans withdraw into a protectionist cocoon or will we choose to stick things out and clean up the mess that was made? But conventional wisdom this far out from an actual election can often be wrong.
More often than not Americans vote on what they perceive to be their best interest. As the 21st Century opened, housing prices soared, liquidity sloshed through the economy and incomes rose with relatively no inflation and we could care about things like Iraq and what our troops were doing over there.
By and large, the war in Iraq has little effect on the day to day lives of most Americans. If you are not in the military or do you have a family member serving, the Iraq is little more than a philosophical or partisan discussion to be had mostly among people you know agree with you. If you are serving or know someone who has, your view is not filtered by the media and you likely know why we’re there, what we’re doing and the costs of failure.
But what will matter to most Americans when they go to the ballot box in 400 days is what affects their day-to-day lives. All signs are indicating that we’ll be feeling an economic pinch by then.
In Stockton, California, home foreclosures have increased ten-fold in the last year as rising interest rates sting homeowners tricked to believe that the housing bubble would not burst.
Consumers are staying away from retail stores in droves leading to lowered expectations from Lowe’s, Target and other retailers, many of them catering to the middle class.
The trucking industry is seeing declining tonnage month-to-month, signaling a decline in economic activity across the nation.
Perhaps all of these signals were telling the Federal Reserve that the U.S. risked slipping into a recession if they did not act before cutting interest rates by a surprise half-a-point. Wall Street liked the Fed’s move at first, but investors have since wondered if they were being proactive in addressing an economic slowdown that the markets were not seeing or rather, choosing not to see.
If the economy is in recession, or heading there, Americans will be faced with two clear choices in Decision 2008: cut taxes or raise them. All of the major Democratic Candidates have promised to repeal the Bush tax cuts and will require even more revenue to pay for the programs they're proposing. Meanwhile, likely Republican nominee Rudy Giuliani can run on a record of cutting taxes 22 times while Mayor of liberal New York City.
Most Americans I know seem smart enough to know that if you want to inject liquidity into the markets, you do not take money away from investors and if you want to increase consumer confidence, you do not do so by taking money away from the working class. Americans understand, instinctively, that the money they earn is theirs--not the Government--and are loathe to hand it over to Washington in tight economic conditions.
If Americans are feeling an economic pinch in their pocketbook, raising taxes will be as popular as invading Iran, leaving Americans with a choice between voting on a war halfway around the world or voting with their pocketbooks. This is why, or rather how, contrary to today's Conventional Wisdom, the GOP has a shot at keeping the White House in 2008. After all, it's the economy, stupid!
The University of Southern California has a proud tradition of excellence on the football field and this year has returned to its glory days under six years of the tutelage of Head Coach Pete Carroll. But not all trophies in the Athletic Department’s Heritage Hall are without tarnish.
Six Heisman Trophies - awarded to the best player each year in college football - are on display in the USC Trojan trophy cases. I assume USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett’s trophy (which would be the seventh statue) is in his office but the one trophy you’d think would be missing is, in fact, front and center in the display case. Yes, USC still celebrates the football career of O.J. Simpson - he who has been accused of double-murderer, found liable for the death of his ex-wife and her boyfriend, accused of stealing Direct TV and now facing eight felony counts in Las Vegas, Nevada.
USC gives all of its Heisman Trophy winners the same treatment. Their number is retired, their trophy and jersey are displayed in the trophy case at Heritage Hall, the university's sprawling athletic center. Trophy winners' numbers are also on large display in the peristyle end of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
I have to wonder how football coach Carroll - who had nothing to do with USC’s Student Body Right heyday of the 1960’s and 70’s - feels when he walks by O.J.’s jersey on the way into the office each day past Simpson's #32 jersey and Heisman Trophy. USC has taken a very diplomatic approach to handling Simpson. The school recognizes that Orenthal James Simpson attended USC and played football - quite well - before going off, like most Heisman winners, to a career in the National Football League. But Simpson is not invited to any official university events. The school embraces his accomplishments on the field while separating themselves from his actions off of the field.
But is that a lesson Carroll truly wants to send to his players? Play good football and you’ll be heralded no matter what happens off the field? Because it seems that is the message being sent to USC players by the coaches and administration. Or, perhaps more accurately, that's the message the players receive.
In recent years, Trojan football players have been arrested for or accused of soliciting a prostitute, spousal battery, sexual assault, plain old assault, gun possession, drug possession, steroid use and more. The list goes on and on and, of course, includes O.J.'s acquittal for for murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
Some of my fellow USC boosters say Simpson is being recognized for accomplishments that are thirty, nigh, forty years in the past and that it's possible to separated by decades from his triumph on the field from his horrible behavior off the field. But being a football player at USC is a little bit like being a cardinal in the Vatican. USC has long tradition for winning football games; playing there as a college student is an accomplishment, a ticket for many to the NFL. The untalented, the modest, don't make it. But no one should be so arrogant as to think that because of their talent on the field, society will excuse anything they do off of it. But if Heritage Hall celebrates O.J. Simpson the football player while looking away from O.J. Simpson the man, that is where we - unfortunately - end up.
Now, I can understand the argument that the man’s troubles today have nothing to do with his on-the-field performance during the Johnson Administration. I can understand why, during the racially charged early 1990s in Los Angeles, USC decided to postpone making a decision about how to handle Simpson’s legacy until after his trail.
But, as a supporter and alumnus of the University of Southern California, I have to say that Simpson’s antics are getting embarrassing. Having listened to the tape from the Las Vegas hotel room robbery where Simpson allegedly tried to steal his own memorabilia, I will likely blush in embarrassment as I walk into the Coliseum on Saturday.
Hopefully, if the charges against Simpson stick, he'll be convicted this time and USC will be able to replace his jersey with a newly retired number in the off season. I'm thinking it'll be the number 10 jersey that belongs to this year's Heisman Trophy candidate - and likely winner - Trojan quarterback John David Booty.
In an episode of the Family Guy earlier this year, Lois Griffin challenges Mayor Adam West for election. When she finds that actually answering questions is not the fastest way to elective office, she begins to answer every question in the debate with two words: nine-eleven.
September Eleventh is no joke - it is one of the most tragic days in our nation’s history. Yet to some Americans it feels like Republicans in particular have taken to answering every question from traffic to the environment is “9/11”.
To some degree this accusation is true which itself is no laughing matter. Because some Republicans have abused the legacy of 9/11, Americans have, by and large, pushed the tragic events of that day out of the public consciousness. The impacts of 9/11 were real, and they continue to exist yet because it has become trite to blame things on 9/11, we look for other culprits or simply blame George Bush.
The hangover of 9/11 is most evident when you walk into the airport. Airline security is important, and it always has been, but the loss of privacy and the inconvenience of the added security is wearing thin. How many times are we going to ask a five year old to remove his shoes or an eighty-year old grandmother to take off her overcoat before we realize that fighting terrorism should involve somehow looking for people who fit the profile of, you know, terrorists?
What’s more, the American airline industry is continuing to pay the price of 9/11, and will for decades to come. In the aftermath of the attacks, several U.S. airlines went into bankruptcy; others barely avoided it by doing things like cutting back on in-flight meals and charing customers for services that used to be included in the ticket price.
Meanwhile, foreign carriers improved their soft products - upgrading premium cabins and installing personal video on demand, for example - and investing in new aircraft such as the Airbus A380 and environmentally-friendly Boeing 787 Dreamliner. American airlines, struggling though difficult times, are now behind the eight ball when it comes to replacing planes; they'll be waiting to replace what they've got for a while. In the meantime, most domestic airlines will be flying louder, less fuel-efficient planes for decades longer than their foreign counterparts. Their inability to provide much more than a Southwest-level of service has opened markets for new entrants like Jet Blue and Virgin America.
There's a broader impact. In the days following the attacks, billions of dollars were lost in global equity markets, leading to reduced tax revenues for federal and state governments. Worker productivity suffered as people stayed home and stayed away from public venues. It’s no surprise, looking at these facts, that President Bush’s 2001 budget surplus became a deficit in 2002 and each year since.
The Post 9/11 economic slowdown led the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to historically low levels. The 1% Fed Funds rate which we all took for granted, fueled hyper-inflation in the nation’s housing markets and a credit free-for-all which ended - you guessed it - with the current sub-prime mess.
While it is tempting to blame 9/11 for all of America’s problems and equally tempting to write off any Republican who want to use the attack as an excuse, not a reason for some of our nation's current problems, we should remember 9/11 and its contributing effects to our collective story not just on the anniversary, but on 9/12, 9/13 and every other day of the year. The effect of this sad day are still with us. We need to realize - and accept - that fact.
Mike Rogers is proud of himself. But he's not proud in the gay-pride kind way. He's proud in the self-important kind of way. By playing into America's fears of homosexuals, and exploiting homophobia, Rogers has managed to get himself labeled the "most-feared" man on Capitol Hill by none other than the Washington Post.
So here's a question that the pioneer of "outing" cannot quite answer. And one The Post didn't seem to ask: When has outing a politician ever done gay rights any good?
A week ago, America learned about the cost homophobia takes on families and homes when we learned how Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig was arrested and convicted for allegedly soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport men's room. For whatever reasons - societal mores, usually top this list - Craig could not live his life honestly and chose, instead, to live in the shadows to fulfill his natural desires. Had he been born some forty years later perhaps somewhere other than Idaho, Craig may well have lived openly and honestly as a bisexual male (if you take him at his word that he's "not gay.") Alas, Craig is a product of his times - one of many and hopefully among the last - a man who seems to engage in homosexual behavior but who steadfastly denies it.
In recent years, the Republican Party has been consistently rocked by "gay" scandals. Florida Congressman Ed Schrock was caught soliciting phone sex and resigned. Rep. Mark Foley, another Florida Republican, sent suggestive instant messages to Congressional pages. Now we have Larry Craig.
Mike Rogers has played a role - behind the scenes, often publicly - in all these affairs. His stated motivation in outing elected officials is to expose hypocrisy. When someone lives a closeted gay life but supports policies he deems anti-gay, he believes their sexual orientation should be exposed. But what do gays gain from these outings? Not much. In fact, there's an argument to be made that Rogers is doing little more than grandstanding.
None of his elected targets have survived their scandal to become a gay-friendly Congressman who might do the community some good. Shrock, Foley and Craig resigned and in the case of the first two, were replaced by politicians who were at least as bad if not worse when it came to voting on gay issues. No doubt the next Senator from Idaho will not be receiving high marks from the Human Rights Campaign any time soon. Another Rogers target, California Republican David Dreier, remains in office in a safe district that's supported him for years. He'll only be ousted if an ultra-conservative uses the Internet attacks against him to gin up a homophobic primary campaign, a pretty good case of leaping from the frying pan into the fire.
When it comes to staffers, Roger's record is far worse. Dan Gurley, used to work at the Republican National Committee and had vocally spoken out against anti-gay campaign tactics. He was fired after Rogers exposed his not-so-closeted gay long term relationship. Needless to say he does not sing the praises of outings by Rogers.
Jonathan Tolman lost his job working for on the Environmental and Public Works Committee for Sen. James Inhofe after being "outed" by Rogers. Tolman's photo had graced the cover of local gay rag Metro Weekly. If he was in the closet, it was a double-sized walk-in with glass French doors swung wide open. It's not hard to see what's going on here. Roger's was trying to associate Inhofe, a conservative Republican, with gays, stirring up homophobia in his home state of Oklahoma. The result? Tolman lost his Capitol Hill job.
Neither Gurley nor Tolman are working for their Republican bosses. But Inhofe remains in power and the RNC continues its work but without an outspoken voice for reason or tolerance from within.
Rogers' main objective is promoting good politics, not good policy. No good policy has come from outing Republican elected officials or their staffs. But if you are a Democrat, it's good politics to see the GOP get a black eye.
And that's the goal here. It's what you'd expect from the man behind "Gays for Giuliani" - a website hoping "educating" bigoted voters on Rudy Giuliani's pro-gay record. Like the rest of Rogers' work, it's nothing more than an attempt to undermine the campaign of the most gay friendly GOP candidate in the Republican Presidential primary and give Democrats another bit of mud to sling at Republicans--putting politics ahead of policy yet again.
