This is not going to end well

Today, the United States is a nation on the brink. Of what, we do not know.

The economy is in turmoil. People are losing their homes. Retirees are losing their retirements. Workers are starting to lose their jobs in large numbers.

WE'RE ALSO going to have a national election in a month. One one side, to paint with the broadest of brushes, we have a young apostle of "hope" who speaks in generalities and has given rise to what approaches a personality cult among some of his younger supporters.

On the other, we have a man whose overarching political philosophy seems to be winning by any means necessary. Never before much of a culture warrior, he has become a strident advocate of social and class conflict as an animating feature of his campaign. Never before much of a partisan, he and his surrogates now paint the Democrat as "dangerous" and a consort of "terrorists."

IN THE TRENCHES, amid the ranks of schoolkids and "Joe Six Packs," we have examples of fascistic hero worship and demagogic demonizing of The Other.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, particularly on the beleaguered Republican side, we see the long knives being pulled from beneath cloaks. The partisans want blood, and blood they shall have.

One must wonder whether party bosses have made fateful decisions. The calculation that, if their side cannot win, the nation will be made as ungovernable as possible for the opposition.

The dagger, however, is double-edged. Will anyone be able to govern?

I CANNOT POINT to a study here, or to anything other than my middle-aged gut. But my gut tells me that Peggy Noonan was onto something this morning on Meet the Press.

We find ourselves at a perilous moment historically. And widespread recklessness is afoot:

MR. BROKAW: And, Peggy Noonan, as you know, the McCain campaign has signaled pretty strongly they’re going to strain—change their strategy. We have a quote from The Weekly Standard. Bill Kristol, who is the editor, is, of course, in the College of Cardinals, he’s the Pope when it comes to writing about what’s going on in the conservative movement. He says in The Weekly Standard, “More important is the negative message. The McCain campaign has to convince 51 percent of the voters they can’t trust Barack Obama to be our next president. ... Character is a legitimate issue. Obama hasn’t shown much in the way of leadership or political courage, and he’s consorted with dubious figures. It’s fair to ask whether Barack Obama is personally trustworthy enough to be president, and the McCain campaign shouldn’t be intimidated from going there.” We already heard on this broadcast, Senator Palin yesterday, raising the association that he had with William Ayers, who is a former member of the Weathermen, a very radical group from the ‘60s and ‘70s, who is now a school reformer in Illinois. Is this a smart strategy, in your judgment, for the McCain campaign?

MS. NOONAN: You know what, this has been a long campaign. We are in the last month. It is still close. Whoever’s rising or, or, or falling, it’s really close. And some part of me fears they’re going to open up the gates of hell on this one. It seems to me there is trench warfare out there. The left—there’s a huge middle in America, but there’s a left. They think they’re going to win, and they’re getting meaner than ever. The right fears they’re going to lose, they’re getting meaner than ever. I would hate to see this descend into this, this—“I’ll kill—I’ll tear your throat out” kind of stuff. I think that would be harmful. I think we are at a unique and dangerous...

MR. YEPSEN: But, Tom...

MS. NOONAN: ...moment in history, and it’s the last thing we need. And I don’t speak as a sissy; I’m trying to speak as an adult.

MR. BROKAW: Yeah. David.

MR. YEPSEN: There’s a danger, Tom, that it backfires.

MS. NOONAN: Yeah. Yeah.

MR. YEPSEN: I mean, clearly John McCain is worried. They’re, they’re on defense. The best proof of that, Tom, is, is what is Sarah Palin doing this afternoon? She is in Omaha, Nebraska. Now, when a Republican vice presidential candidate has to go to defend one congressional district—they vote their electors by congressional district--30 days out, it tells you they’re worried. And so what, what I see happening in the McCain campaign, with all this talk about William Ayers, is this sort of a sense of desperation. It could get carried away, and it’s irrelevant to people in mainstream America, in middle America. You know, William Ayers, what do they care about—how is that going to put gas in the tank or get somebody a job? I think it runs the risk of coming off as irrelevant.

MR. GREGORY: But just to show you how...

MS. NOONAN: And it runs the risk of being demoralizing.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MS. NOONAN: Forgive me, David. But in a serious national way, don’t do that.

MR. BROKAW: Although, before we go on with this, maybe what the McCain campaign is reading the last draft of the latest Time magazine-CNN poll—and this shows up in a number of polls—Senator Obama still shows vulnerability on the question of what kind of president he would be. Fifty percent of those polled said Obama gives a great speech, but doesn’t have other qualifications; 46 percent disagreed with that statement. But that’s in a poll in which Senator Obama did very well overall.

(snip)

MS. NOONAN: Can I make a point, also, that I think part of the reason this is going to get so rough in the next month, trying to get my, my hands around this thing, is that we live in the age of political strategists. We live in the age of the guys on the plane. We live in the age of the BlackBerry guys saying, “Let’s get them this way. Let’s get them this way.” It exists on both campaigns, the instinct, “Hey, we have nothing to do now but go to, to the jugular.” I have the sense sometimes lately that these guys on the plane think history is their plaything. History is not their plaything. This is big. This is a nation having two ground wars and an economic recession—we hope just a mild recession. This is not a time for playfulness and mischief. It ain’t right.

AMEN.

Bet your bottom dollar on Bill

Click picture for video.

Don't be surprised if "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, the indicted congressman from Louisiana's 2nd District, is the next congressman from Louisiana's 2nd District -- that's New Orleans to you and me.

William Jefferson's Democratic runoff opponent will be Helena Moreno, a 30-year-old former TV anchorwoman. Jefferson, who finished first in the primary Saturday, has a good shot at doing the same in November.

THE UNKNOWN REPUBLICAN in the race has no shot at finishing first in the December general election.

The Times-Picayune reports:

Despite the dual impediments of an upcoming federal trial on public corruption charges and a slew of well-financed opponents, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson ran first in Saturday's Democratic Party primary for the 2nd Congressional District seat that he has held for 18 years.

He will battle former TV news anchor and first-time candidate Helena Moreno of New Orleans in the Nov. 4 contest. With two-thirds of the district's voters registered as Democrats, the winner of the party runoff is almost certain to claim the congressional seat.

With 482 of 492 precincts reporting late Saturday, Jefferson led the seven-candidate Democratic field with 25 percent of the vote, followed by Moreno with 20 percent. The general election is Dec. 6.

For Jefferson, it was only the second time since he captured the seat in 1990 that he has been forced into a runoff. Two years ago, he handily defeated state Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, though she outspent him by a 2-to-1 margin.

This time, Jefferson managed to fend off a field of primary opponents who together raised $1.5 million -- compared with his $200,000 cache -- in their effort to unseat him.

Jefferson has seen his fortunes crumble since the federal probe into his business dealings became public more than three years ago.

Six months after he was sworn into a ninth term, a federal grand jury indicted him on 16 counts of public corruption related to his business dealings. Earlier this year, two of his siblings were indicted on separate charges that they stole money from charities; six other Jefferson relatives also were implicated in that case.

The congressman's trial is set to start Dec. 2.

Flanked by his wife and daughters at the eastern New Orleans eatery Flavorz by Mattie, Jefferson, 61, thanked supporters for sticking with him.

"I cannot tell you how much gratitude I have in my heart tonight for what you have done to undergird the work that my family and I have undertaken for so many years together," he said. "Give us your support, give us your prayers as you have, and we'll keep delivering for our area."

Moreno, 30, was a well-known news personality at WDSU-TV before she quit in March to explore a run for Congress. With support from local business executives and political power brokers from both parties, she managed to surge ahead of five opponents with extensive political resumes.

Moreno is vying to become the second woman ever elected to represent Louisiana in the U.S. House, following former Rep. Lindy Boggs, a New Orleans Democrat who held the 2nd District seat before Jefferson.

As the only white candidate in the primary field, Moreno also would make history by winning in a district where 62 percent of registered voters are African-American. Jefferson is black.

TWO YEARS AGO -- when everybody and his uncle knew the dishonorable member from Louisiana was going to be indicted -- Dollar Bill beat a black woman backed by the Democratic Party regulars and all the big money. Now we're supposed to believe the indicted Jefferson is going to lose to a white woman backed by the Democratic Party regulars and all the big money?

I don't think so.

Here's what's going to happen: Moreno will run a fierce anti-corruption campaign, arguing that Jefferson is almost certainly guilty, likely will go down in flames soon after the election, has no clout left in Washington and is, on principle, unfit for public office.

Jefferson will counter thus:

The white woman is calling the black man a crook. The white establishment has been after me, they want their white woman candidate in power, and they want you under their thumb.

You know me. I've been bringing home the federal bacon. Did I mention that my opponent is a white woman?

AND DID I MENTION that Barack Obama is on the November presidential ballot?

I'm not saying Jefferson absolutely will win -- I'm not a political scientist, and I don't play one on TV. I'm not a soothsayer, either. But I think it's likely he'll win next month, and then again in December . . . days after his public-corruption trial begins in federal court.

Let me repeat that -- days after his public-corruption trial begins in federal court.

If New Orleans and Louisiana in some ways resemble a failed state, there are reasons for that. And they span not only present day white flight, the challenges facing African-Americans and the state's ongoing "brain drain" but, in reality, reach back to the days of Jim Crow.

And not only back to the dysfunctional era of "separate but equal," but also back to Huey Long, and beyond the Kingfish to the corrupt reign of the "Bourbon" Democrats . . . and beyond even that to the Civil War . . . and beyond even that to Spanish and French colonial rule.

If you want to understand -- in part -- a place like my home state, you need to know a little about places like Haiti, Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. You need to understand the French and Spanish colonial mindsets. You need to understand class-based societies.

If you want to understand Louisiana, you need to understand me a little bit. You need to understand how I have lived for 20-plus years now in the Midwest -- in a great, up-and-coming city like Omaha -- but oftentimes still feel like a stranger in a strange land.

That the "America" I, in Louisiana, was enculturated into wasn't necessarily America as the vast majority of Americans understand the concept. Turns out we were still a colony and didn't quite realize it.

If you want to know how this congressional election in New Orleans is going to work itself out, just assume the cynical worst, like you might in much of American politics. Then double down on your bet.

'Cause dat's Louisiana for you.

Oh . . . what the Buck. This is cool.

Man, I miss stuff like this. You can take the boy out of the 1960s -- and the South -- but. . . .

I especially like the part where the director thinks "We got us this fancy new zoom lens and, by God, we're 'a gonna use that sucker. Outlandishly."

3 Chords & the Truth: What the Buck

Listen, y'all. It's been a tough week.

The country's on the brink. And then there's that financial meltdown thing, too. I don't know about you (though I suspect maybe I do, a little), but my brain is full.

I'M CRANKY, and I'm wondering what the hell is going on nowadays. Not only that, but I just got stitches out of my back, I have a sinus infection, I'm on antibiotics and I can't have a beer -- even though I really could use a cold one right now.

So when it came time to do this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, I just said "What the Buck."

"What the Buck" will set you free.

SO THAT'S THE DEAL with the Big Show -- I'm just saying "What the Buck," having a little mindless fun and trying not to make my brain -- or yours -- hurt any more than it already is.

What. The. Buck.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

'You won't believe what people are uploading'

Whoever wrote the positioning statement for CNN's iReport page didn't know how right he was.

"iReport.com," the pithy headline says. "See it first. Your Stories. No Boundaries. You won't believe what people are uploading."

Well, no, you won't believe what people are uploading. That's because you can't believe what some people are uploading.

FOR EXAMPLE, THE "iREPORT" that Apple chief Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital after suffering a massive heart attack. Not true.

The problem is, a lot of investors and Wall Street traders did believe what they read on the Cable News Network site. And Apple's stock tanked -- a 5.4-percent drop at its lowest.

Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating, according to Bloomberg News:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the origin of a false report on a CNN citizen journalist Web site that Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs had a heart attack and was hospitalized, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry.

The agency's enforcement unit is trying to determine whether the iReport.com posting was intended to push down the company's stock price, said the person, who declined to be identified because the probe isn't public. The report is ``not true,'' Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in an interview.

Concern about Jobs's health weighed on the shares this year, contributing to a 51 percent drop. The stock swing caused by today's erroneous report drew renewed calls for Apple, which has said only that Jobs's health is a ``private matter,'' to be more forthcoming, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at Yale University's School of Management.

``Leaving it to rumor and speculation is reckless,'' said Sonnenfeld, who has personally owned Apple shares since 1997, the year Jobs returned as CEO. ``If he is healthy, they should say so. If he's not, we should know that too.''

The shares fell as much as 5.4 percent earlier today after the post on iReport.com cited an anonymous source saying Jobs was rushed to the hospital after suffering a ``major heart attack.'' The report has been removed.

John Heine, a spokesman for the SEC, declined to comment on whether the agency will look into today's erroneous report.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, dropped $3.03, or 3 percent, to $97.07 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock earlier fell to $94.65, the first time it has traded at less than $100 since May 2007.

IT TOOK JUST A DAY to find someone in the journalism universe stupider than the Detroit radio reporter who got fired for wearing an Obama T-shirt while covering an Obama rally. Unfortunately, that "someone" is a whole network.

The one whose executives came up with "See it first. Your Stories. No Boundaries. You won't believe what people are uploading."

What were they thinking? Without close supervision -- and fact checking -- by an adequate number of editors for the task, CNN's iReport is ripe for victimization by a Janet Cooke a day. At least.

In the present era of lean budgets and leaner newsroom staffs, do you think CNN's iReport is getting supervision equal to the task? Today's fiasco -- possibly a criminal stock-manipulation fiasco -- says no.

I hope Apple sues CNN for millions, because CNN violated the cardinal rule of journalism: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out."

CNN didn't know the "citizen reporter" from Adam, but that didn't stop the cable-news outfit's web editors from taking his unconfirmed report and plopping it prominently on the iReport page. With nary a call to an Apple flack for confirmation.

Ever.

BUT IT gets worse, according to Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider:

"Citizen journalism" apparently just failed its first significant test. A CNN iReport poster reported this morning that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the ER after a severe heart attack (story and screenshot below). Fortunately, it appears the story was false. We contacted an Apple spokeswoman, who categorically denied it.

CNN's iReport kept the report up until at least 10:15 AM, about 20 minutes after we published Apple's denial. The story has since been removed.

UPDATE: Here's CNN's official statement. CNN says it removed the story because the "community" brought the story to its attention. Importantly, CNN also refers to the content as "fraudulent," which is much stronger than "inaccurate." "Fraudulent" implies an intent to deceive.

CNN's iReport, Original Story

Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable. I haven't seen anything about this anywhere else yet, and as of right now, I have no further information, so I thought this would be a good place to start. If anyone else has more information, please share it.

Immediately after reading the iReport story, we contacted Apple. Katie Cotton, Vice President of Worldwide Communications, replied quickly, saying "It is not true."

A GUY with a trade blog can get an Apple flack on the phone after reading the CNN iReport, but a CNN web editor couldn't do the same before almost sinking Apple's stock by publishing something that flew in over the Internet transom?

Let the journalism world watch this train wreck carefully, then proceed exceedingly cautiously into the brave new world of "citizen journalism."

"Citizen reporters" work for free. And, sometimes, you're going to get exactly what you pay for.

Hang down your head and cry. . . .

From The Associated Press:

Nick Reynolds, a founding member of the Kingston Trio who jump-started the revival folk scene of the late 1950s and paved the way for artists such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, has died. He was 75.

Reynolds had been hospitalized with acute respiratory disease and other illnesses, and died Wednesday in San Diego after his family took him off life support, said son Joshua Reynolds.

"Dad was so happy he turned people onto music in a way that people could really approach it, in a simple and honest way," Josh Reynolds told The Associated Press. "He was a very gracious and loving performer. He was a devoted family man."

The Kingston Trio's version of the 19th century folk song "Tom Dooley" landed the group a No. 1 spot on the charts in 1958, and launched the band's career.

Born on July 27, 1933, in San Diego, Nicholas Reynolds demonstrated an early love of music and did sing-alongs with his two sisters and their Navy captain-father, who taught him to play guitar.

He graduated from Coronado High School in 1951 and attended the University of Arizona and San Diego State University before attending Menlo College, a business school near Palo Alto. He graduated from Menlo in 1956.

It was during the mid-1950s that Nicholas Reynolds met Bob Shane, who introduced him to Stanford student Dave Guard. Guard and Shane knew each other from playing music in Guard's native Hawaii. The three formed the Kingston Trio.

In 1958, "Tom Dooley" earned Reynolds, Guard and Shane a trophy for best country and western performance at the first Grammys. The group, defined by tight harmonies and a clean-cut style, went on to win a Grammy the next year for best folk performance for its album "The Kingston Trio At Large."

Later member John Stewart joined the group in 1961, replacing Guard. Stewart died in January, also in San Diego.

THE VIDEO ABOVE is from November 1959. Reynolds is on the right.

Stupid reporter tricks

How stupid are some people?

WELL, here's one example, courtesy of The Detroit News:

Longtime Metro Detroit radio reporter Karen Dinkins has been fired after wearing a pro-Barack Obama T-shirt while covering a rally for the presidential candidate Sunday at the Detroit Public Library.

Dinkins, who has worked at WWJ (950 AM) for 13 years, acknowledged that the radio station fired her Monday, but she did not elaborate.

"I don't want to comment at this time," she said.

Georgeann Herbert, WWJ's director of programming, said in a statement that Dinkins compromised the station's objectivity by wearing the T-shirt.

"(The station) believes that our credibility with our listeners rests on the independence of our newsroom staff," the statement said. "WWJ does not favor any candidate, party or issue.

I'M NOT SURPRISED there are people out there so lacking in common sense. I am, however, troubled that one of them can last 13 years as a reporter for a major-market radio station. Good Lord!

Uh . . . because the bailout's better now?

Rep. Lee Terry, congressman for Nebraska's 2nd District, used to be agin' the Wall Street "bailout" plan. But now he's fer it.

Says the Omaha World-Herald:

The Omaha congressman voted Monday against the House version of the bailout, as did the three other House members from Nebraska and western Iowa. The others remain either skeptical or opposed.

Terry was one of the first to indicate that he could reverse course and support the bill, saying even before the Senate vote Wednesday that his key objections had been addressed.

He had called for an increase in federal insurance of bank deposits and a waiver of accounting rules that require companies to write down assets to reflect their true market value.

The Senate bill raises the cap on insurance for bank deposits from $100,000 to $250,000, and the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it would ease the "mark-to-market" accounting rules.

"Basically, my demands have been met," Terry said Wednesday night.

He said he now expects that nowhere near the full $700 billion would be necessary — and he feels good about the plan.

"I still haven't committed to anybody," he said. "Maybe I'll think of a new reason to vote no, but I doubt it."

YES, THE ENTIRE Washington power structure was brought to heel by an obscure congressman from the plains of Nebraska. Who previously had been ready to blow up the nation's financial markets because "mark-to-market" rules and more FDIC insurance weren't included in the original package -- even though both long had been under discussion and could be implemented administratively.

No, Terry's flip-flop couldn't have had anything to do with this. Or this.

I mean, what's an entire city administration panicked over the prospect of not being able to float municipal bonds -- and over maybe having to cancel construction projects -- got to do with anything? Compared to "mark-to-market" reform, potentially selling your hometown down the fiscal river is peanuts.

Ditto that concerned billionnaire and civic titan you've got on the telephone there, wondering how you got your head that far up your ass.

Naw, Terry's switch was an entirely principled affair.

Whatever. Just so long as he switches.

Slouching into that good night

We're teetering on the edge of some bad juju here in America, and the woman above could be vice-president.

If that weren't depressing enough. . . .

Don't worry, be happy.

Remain calm, all is well. Yes, we can!

"We're gonna spread happiness! We're gonna spread freedom! Obama's gonna change it, Obama's gonna lead 'em."

Or so we have been informed by a choir of brainwashed children singing hosannas to the Man Who Would Be Dear Leader.

FOR THE LIFE OF ME, I can't figure out why the Europeans don't think much of us anymore. Really, where did this Der Spiegel opinion piece come from?

There are days when all it takes is a single speech to illustrate the decline of a world power. A face can speak volumes, as can the speaker's tone of voice, the speech itself or the audience's reaction. Kings and queens have clung to the past before and humiliated themselves in public, but this time it was merely a United States president.

Or what is left of him.

George W. Bush has grown old, erratic and rosy in the eight years of his presidency. Little remains of his combativeness or his enthusiasm for physical fitness. On this sunny Tuesday morning in New York, even his hair seemed messy and unkempt, his blue suit a little baggy around the shoulders, as Bush stepped onto the stage, for the eighth time, at the United Nations General Assembly.

He talked about terrorism and terrorist regimes, and about governments that allegedly support terror. He failed to notice that the delegates sitting in front of and below him were shaking their heads, smiling and whispering, or if he did notice, he was no longer capable of reacting. The US president gave a speech similar to the ones he gave in 2004 and 2007, mentioning the word "terror" 32 times in 22 minutes. At the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations, George W. Bush was the only one still talking about terror and not about the topic that currently has the rest of the world's attention.

"Absurd, absurd, absurd," said one German diplomat. A French woman called him "yesterday's man" over coffee on the East River. There is another way to put it, too: Bush was a laughing stock in the gray corridors of the UN.

The American president has always had enemies in these hallways and offices at the UN building on First Avenue in Manhattan. The Iranians and Syrians despise the eternal American-Israeli coalition, while many others are tired of Bush's Americans telling the world about the blessings of deregulated markets and establishing rules "that only apply to others," says the diplomat from Berlin.

But the ridicule was a new thing. It marked the end of respect.

"Well," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva began, standing outside the General Assembly Hall. Then he looked out the window and said: "He decided to talk about terrorism, but the issue that has the world concerned is the economic crisis." Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the president of Argentina, said that the schoolmasters from Washington had dubbed the 1994 Mexican crisis the "tequila effect" and Brazil's 1999 crisis the "Caipirinha effect."

Are we now experiencing the "whiskey effect?" But President Kirchner was gracious and, with a smile, called it the "jazz effect."

Is it only President George W. Bush, the lame duck president, whom the rest of the world is no longer taking seriously, or are the remaining 191 UN member states already setting their sights on the United States, the giant brought to its knees? UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon referred to a "new reality" and "new centers of power and leadership in Asia, Latin America and across the newly developed world." Are they surprised, in these new centers, at the fall of America, of the system of the Western-style market economy?

OH, JUST WAIT. It gets better:

This is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows, the superpower that sets the rules for everyone else and that considers its way of thinking and doing business to be the only road to success.

A new America is on display, a country that no longer trusts its old values and its elites even less: the politicians, who failed to see the problems on the horizon, and the economic leaders, who tried to sell a fictitious world of prosperity to Americans.

Also on display is the end of arrogance. The Americans are now paying the price for their pride.

Gone are the days when the US could go into debt with abandon, without considering who would end up footing the bill. And gone are the days when it could impose its economic rules of engagement on the rest of the world, rules that emphasized profit above all else -- without ever considering that such returns cannot be achieved by doing business in a respectable way.

With its rule of three of cheap money, free markets and double-digit profit margins, American turbo-capitalism has set economic standards worldwide for the past quarter century. Now it is proving to be nothing but a giant snowball system, upsetting the US's global political status as it comes crashing down. Every bank that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is currently forced to bail out with American government funds damages America's reputation around the world.

Of course, it is not solely the result of undesirable economic developments that the United States is in the process of forfeiting its unique position in the world and that the world is moving toward what Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, calls a "post-American age." Washington has also lost much of its political ability to impose its will on other countries.

The failed leadership of President Bush, whose departure most of his counterparts from other countries are now looking forward to more and more openly, is not solely to blame. Nor are his two risky wars: the one in Iraq, which he launched frivolously in the vain hope of converting the entire region to the American way of life, and the other in Afghanistan, in which Bush now risks the world's most powerful defense alliance, NATO, suffering its first defeat.

But it's hard to forget how this president's mentors celebrated the power to shape world affairs the United States acquired in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the East-West conflict. There was talk of a "unipolar moment," of "America's moment," even of an "end of history," now that all other countries apparently had no other choice but to become smaller versions of America: liberal, democratic and buoyed by an unshakeable confidence in the free market economy.

The Bush administration wanted to cement forever this unique moment in history, in which the United States was undoubtedly the strongest power on earth. It wanted to use it to clean house in chronic crisis zones around the world, especially the Middle East. Far from relying on the classic, cumbersome and often unsuccessful tools of multilateral diplomacy, the Bush warriors were always quick to threaten military intervention -- just as quick as they were to make good on this threat.

The strategists of this immoderately self-confident administration formulated these principles in the "Bush doctrine" and claimed, for themselves and their actions, the right to "preemptive" military intervention -- with little concern for the rules of alliances or international organizations.

The superpower even claimed privileges over its allies, even offending some of its best friends during Bush's first term. Bush withdrew the American signature from a treaty to establish the International Criminal Court, he refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change and he withdrew from an agreement with the Russians to limit the number of missile defense systems.

Washington sought to divide the world into good and evil -- and did so as it saw fit.

Now, in the wake of the crash on Wall Street, the debate in the UN reveals that the long-humiliated have lost their fear of the giant in world politics. Even a political dwarf like Bolivian President Evo Morales is now talking big. "There is an uprising against an economic model, a capitalistic system that is the worst enemy of humanity," Morales told the UN General Assembly.

The financial crisis has uncovered the world power's true weakness. The more the highly indebted United States has to spend to stabilize its own economic system, the more trouble it has performing its self-imposed duties as the world's policeman.
The new US president will only have been in office for a short time when a document titled "Global Trends 2025" appears on his desk. The report is being prepared by analysts at the National Intelligence Council. Its chairman, Thomas Fingar, has already released a preview, and reading it will not exactly be enjoyable for proud American. "Although the United States will remain the most important power, American dominance will be sharply reduced," says Fingar.

According to the preview of the report, the erosion of American supremacy will "accelerate in the areas of politics and economics, and possibly culture."

The century that just began is unlikely to be declared the American century again. Instead, "Asia will shape the fate of the world, with or without the United States," says Parag Khanna, a young Indian-American political scientist whose book "The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order" has attracted a great deal of attention in the United States.

There is much to be said for Khanna's assertion. Beijing is already funding a large share of the gigantic American trade deficit, while at the same time selling many consumer goods to the United States. In other words, it benefits from the US's weakness in two ways. And politically speaking, the newly self-confident Chinese will no longer allow themselves to be domineered by the West. Reacting to worldwide criticism of political oppression in Tibet, the Chinese encouraged their nationalist youth to assault Western institutions and refused to allow themselves to be lectured on human rights.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has acknowledged that the "world's largest debtor nation" cannot simultaneously shape the course of the world. The challenges America faces have multiplied, especially in recent times.

WELL, HOW DO YOU like that, America? You really must read the whole thing -- particularly since it's all true.

And particularly since it's all our own damned fault.

Sometime during the last few decades, we Americans ceased to be a serious people. The past eight years, particularly, have exposed a country unserious about public and private morality, unserious about effective self-governance and seriously incapable of cultural . . . seriousness.

But we did get the world to buy into a serious Ponzi scheme. We should be so proud.

We've made a grand hash of things, and now we stand ready to elect as our leaders either an unstable McCrank and his comely-but-ditzy sidekick or the Dalai Obama and his gaffe-prone lesser incarnation.

ONCE, the United States was a country of great products and audacious feats. That time is past.

It's now last call for the American Century as a nation slips off the barstool -- a little hazy, a little discomfitedly buzzed -- and prepares to slouch off gentle into that good night.

Los Estados Unidos de Chiquita

In case you were unsure whether the United States is now a banana republic, this Associated Press story should disabuse you of any overly rosy notions:

Astounded by the U.S. government's failure to resolve the financial crisis threatening the foundations of the global free market, fingers of blame are pointing at America from around the planet.

Latin American leaders say the U.S. must quickly fix the financial crisis it created before the rest of the world's hard-won economic gains are lost.

"The managers of big business took huge risks out of greed," said President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, whose economy is highly dependent on U.S. trade. "What happens in the United States will affect the entire world and, above all, small countries like ours."

In Europe, where some blame a phenomenon of "casino capitalism" that has become deeply ingrained from New York to London to Moscow, there is more of a sense of shared responsibility. But Europeans also blame the U.S. government for letting things get out of hand.

Amid harsh criticism is a growing consensus that stricter financial regulation is needed to prevent unfettered capitalism from destroying economies around the globe.

And leaders of developing nations that kept spending tight and opened their economies in response to American demands are warning of other consequences — a loss of U.S. influence globally and the likelihood that the world's poor will suffer the most from greed by the biggest players in global finance.

"They spent the last three decades saying we needed to do our chores. They didn't," a grim-faced Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday.

(snip)

China's influence in the outcome of all this could be profound because it is a huge investor in U.S. debt. It is already calling for strict new international regulatory systems to apply to globalized financial markets.

Liu Mingkang, chairman of the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission, said Saturday before a weeklong bank holiday in China that debt in the United States and elsewhere has risen to dangerous and indefensible levels.

The rest of the world is taking notice. Many newspapers made references Tuesday to China's increasing importance in global finance. In Algeria, a large cartoon on the front page of the newspaper El-Watan showed Uncle Sam at prayer: "Save us!" he says, kneeling before a portrait of China's Mao Zedong.

NOW ALL WE NEED is a gruff and impetuous generalissimo in charge of things -- or perhaps a charismatic figure with a Messiah complex and a personality cult -- to complete our climb up the Chiquita food chain.

OH . . . CRAP.

'My advice to you is to start drinking heavily'

The official United States YouTube clip.
We just keep going to this one . . .
because it's so true. Contains profanity.

Dear World,


Hey! You f***** up!

You trusted us!

The Washington Post reports on markets and banks and economies (Oh, my!) in deep doo all across the world:

The turmoil that began on Wall Street now spans the globe.

Stock markets around the world cascaded lower Monday, European regulators announced the rescue of four major banks, and U.S. and foreign officials pledged to make hundreds of billions of dollars available to ensure that banks would continue lending to each other.

Yet the contagion continued. U.S. stocks opened weak, then fell off a cliff after the House of Representatives voted down a $700 billion plan intended to restore stability to the nation's wobbly financial system. That sent Brazil's stock market down 10 percent, prompting authorities in Sao Paulo to temporarily suspend trading, amid worries of a deep U.S. economic slowdown.

In the seldom-interrupted cycle of global financial markets, the extraordinary pace and scale of events brought an abrupt end to the confident attitude displayed by European officials as recently as last week, when officials claimed that shareholders and investors there had less to fear than their American counterparts because European banks weren't as heavily exposed to the troubled mortgage loans undermining the U.S. system.

(snip)

In France, authorities had been worrying about a sell-off of the stock of Dexia, a Franco-Belgian bank catering to local governments. The bank's stock dropped by more than a third in early trading Monday, then recovered slightly on a pledge from Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders to step in with government funds if necessary.

The Paris newspaper Le Figaro said a U.S. subsidiary of Dexia, the bond insurer FSA, had caused concerns among investors because of involvement in shaky real estate mortgages in the United States.

Several analysts said the European banking problems are biggest at institutions with heavy exposure to European property bubbles. Millions of homeowners and developers took out loans against property that is no longer valued at what it was a few months ago.

Nicolas Véron, a research fellow at the Bruegel center in Brussels, said concern has risen about strains in the banking system spreading to the Baltic countries and Eastern Europe, where several nations also have experienced property bubbles.

"We knew this would happen, because the storm in the U.S. is so powerful," Véron said.

Let them eat plastique!

From my congressman's official website today:

WASHINGTON- Today Congressman Terry (R-NE) voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, H.R. 3997. The bill failed on a vote of 205-228.

“The magnitude of increasing federal bureaucracy with $700 billion of taxpayer money is not a decision to be made so quickly. I truly believe there are other options including using the private market that should be thoughtfully considered by Congress. I look forward to continuing work in a timely fashion on this critical matter,” said Congressman Terry.

Suicide bombers of the economy

We're all Palestinian nut jobs now. Virtual suicide bombers of the economy.

Americans saw the prospect of a Wall Street bailout, and they freaked out. Started yelling "Death to the infidels!" Declared that if not pulling the financial markets' chestnuts out of the fire meant another Great Depression, then bring it on.

That's what enraged folks were telling reporters and cheerfully saying on talk radio all across the United States -- bring it on. Well, it's on. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 777.68 points today.

WHAT MIGHT have happened had Congress' failure to pass the "bailout bill" not come more than halfway through the trading day . . . before the Democrats and Republicans melted down into paroxysms of partisan s*** slinging?

Yep, barring a miracle of policy and politics, we really just might have us a depression now. Like H.L. Mencken said so long ago, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Who'd have thought what American voters most wanted was to be just like some Palestinian nut job, so intent on killing Jews that he's perfectly willing to blow himself up -- and whatever other Arabs might be within blast range -- too? Today, just change "Jews" to "investment bankers."

That's what a clear majority of Americans have opted for -- blowing up the economy (and themselves . . . and their friends . . . and their neighbors . . . and their children) on the off chance all those Wall Street robber barons might be reduced from obscenely rich to moderately rich.

IN THEIR FIT of pique -- and in their abject denial that their own greed might have played any role whatsoever in America's financial crisis -- ordinary Americans have turned down what Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House minority leader, called "a crap sandwich" in favor of strapping on an explosive vest.

A smart lot we Americans are. A smart lot who think the Palestinians are nuts.

If you want to put a Biblical spin on matters, maybe this is a prime example of why Jesus said we have to forgive others "70 times seven" times. Grudges and hatred make you blind -- blind to your own faults . . . your own sin . . . and your own self-interest.

Today, through our elected representatives, we've struck a powerful and wounding blow to the evil greedheads of Wall Street. We may not survive our glorious victory.

And neither may our children.

We must be so proud.

Don't eat (or drink) while watching this

A drinking game for Mormons

Here's a drinking game that our Mormon (and strict Southern Baptist) brothers and sisters can participate in with a clean -- and sober -- conscience.

Here's what you do: Download Sarah Palin's interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric from the CBS News website. Then, procure a fifth of Seagram's, Early Times, Jack Black, Stoli . . . or, hell, just mix up a big pitcher of "jungle juice" (Everclear and Kool-Aid).

NOW, ALL YOU NEED to do is gather around the laptop, play the interview and take a drink every time Palin makes a lick of sense.

If someone insists on taking pictures to upload to his or her Facebook page, I guarantee that no one will be worried about his pastor -- or any potential employer -- stumbling across them on the Internets.

Here's another Palinapalooza sample from the CBS Evening News:

Katie Couric: Why is it much more challenging there? Can you explain that?

Sarah Palin: The logistics that we are already suggesting here, not having enough troops in the area right now. The… things like the terrain even in Afghanistan and that border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, you know, we believe that-- Bin Laden is-- is hiding out right now and… and is still such a leader of this terrorist movement. There… there are many more challenges there. So, again, I believe that… a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has proven to have done in Iraq. And as I say, Katie, that we cannot afford to retreat, to withdraw in Iraq. That's not gonna get us any better off in Afghanistan either. And as our leaders are telling us in our military, we do need to ramp it up in Afghanistan, counting on our friends and allies to assist with us there because these terrorists who hate America, they hate what we stand for with the… the freedoms, the democracy, the… the women's rights, the tolerance, they hate what it is that we represent and our allies, too, and our friends, what they represent. If we were… were to allow a stronghold to be captured by these terrorists then the world is in even greater peril than it is today. We cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan.

SEE, NOT A THING in there that would cause Demon Alcohol to pass through pious lips.

McCain-Tambo '08

My God, the Republicans nominated Shelly Tambo for vice-president!

Not only that, when the second fiddle of the McCain-Tambo '08 ticket goes before the TV cameras without a script in front of her, it's tough to tell Tambo's real interviews from Tambo impersonators' gag interviews. It can get right confusing.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND. If the GOP and Sen. John McCain wanted to recruit a No. 2 from the ranks of Alaska moose-shooters, why not go for Maggie O'Connell? Or even Maurice Minnifield?

Honestly, I thought it was bad enough when, in her first TV interview, Tambo said she had foreign-policy experience because the Brick served both Stolichnaya AND Absolut. But this latest interview with CBS Evening News anchorwoman Katie Couric is just too much.

I think I'd need to polish off at least one bottle of Stoli -- maybe two -- before anything she said would start to make any sense to me.

THEN AGAIN, after a bottle or two of fine vodka, I wouldn't much care. Which would pretty much put me on a par with McCain and the Republican Party leadership, now, wouldn't it?

3 Chords & the Truth: Br0 c4n U 5p4r3 4 d1m3?

The waiting is the hardest part. At least that's what Tom Petty thinks.

But that's what I'm doing here in the 3 Chords & the Truth studio, and that's what you're doing wherever. We're waiting for the end of the world . . . at least the world as we've known it.

FINANCIALLY, we're in a real pickle now. The "experts" say only Congress -- and an infusion of your tax money -- can save us now. Or, more precisely, save Wall Street, which is supposed to, in turn, save us.

From what, we're not sure. Maybe we're waiting for the pols to save us from another Great Depression, whatever that might look like in the 21st century. Perhaps it's just from a nasty recession.

Some folks have had it with the greedheads in finance and government, and they say, "Screw 'em all, being on the abyss!"

Be careful what you ask for. You may get it. "It," in this case, may be the Mother of All Noses Cut Off to Spite Faces.

HELL, I'm no prognosticator. I was expecting the stock market to tank Friday; it was up 120 points. But I think simple logic (and accounting) dictates that even if the politicians pull our butts out of the crack, America still will face a reckoning -- maybe now, maybe later.

I don't think the "American Dream," at least as we now define it, is sustainable. Even if our revolving credit holds out, the oil supply won't forever. And a change is gonna come.

That's what this week's show is all about -- and you knew I would get around to the show eventually, yes? This week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is about hitting the wall . . . it's about hard times and hard limits.

It's about being a lot poorer, and it's about redefining what it means to be rich. Wealth without cash, as it were.

THIS WEEK, the Big Show is all about being broke, and being broken. It's about the love of money and the pitfalls thereof. It's about what comes next, after the fall. It's about revolution, victory, peace and love.

And the show, as always, is about damn fine music, put together in a unique manner.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Aloha.

Way to go, Louisiana!

Dear Louisiana,

I assume not everyone in my home state is a Nazi or a racist . . . or even an ignorant knothead.

On the other hand, though, Louisianians have an unfortunate propensity for tolerating crumbling schools, dysfunctional cities, crooked politicians and crypto-Nazis in high office. Judging from crap like this, a lot of God Bless Amerika conservatives down there are more dismayed by me calling "Nazi" on a pol who wants to eliminate the poor by eliminating the poor than they are by one of their own trodding the same path as Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler.

Anything to save the sainted taxpayer a buck, eh? That's where Hitler got his start, too. Kill and sterilize the "defectives," ease the burden on der volk. Then move up to killing out-of-favor ethnic groups -- because they're a blight, too.

Well, given that Louisiana has been judged guilty of "generational welfare," generational stupidity, generational corruption and generational half-assedness, why shouldn't the rest of America deal with the Gret Stet just as some in the Gret Stet would deal with the poor?

I mean, look. All we need to do is turn on the television to collect sufficient information for a quick verdict.

And we don't need no stinkin' tubal ligations to carry out our sentence . . . which would be your vanishing act. We can just cut off the federal tax dollars -- there go those outraged taxpayers again -- and let the Gulf of Mexico (and the storms that roll ashore off of it) do the rest.

After all, since eradication is what you'd like to do unto others, you must be OK with that being done to you. Right?

You can discuss among yourselves.

Mission accomplished, Mr. President

Once in khaki suits,
Ah, gee we looked swell
Full of that yankee doodle dee dum!
Half a million boots went sloggin' through hell
And I was the kid with the drum!
Oh, say don't you remember?
They called me Al.
It was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember?
I'm your pal.
Buddy, can you spare a dime?

-- "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" (1931),
lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney

Say what???

I know pictures on Blogger can lack a certain, errrrrr . . . je ne sais quoi. I think the word is "resolution."

Thankfully for those of us with bifocals, you can click on the picture and see a larger version. For those who don't want to bother, here's what the story page on Omaha.com says:

BREAKING NEWS: First presidential debate schedule for Friday night

The first presidential debate schedule for Friday night, CNN is reporting this evening.

Details to follow.

GLAD TO KNOW IT. Now, what exactly does it mean?


UPDATE: OK, now we're getting somewhere, though I still don't know what the deal is with that first paragraph:

The first presidential debate is scheduled for Friday night, CNN is reporting this evening.

The Associated Press reported whether U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain would go forward with their highly anticipated debate remained unresolved late this evening after their White House meeting failed to conclusively produce an economic bailout agreement.

Details to follow.

REALLY, the debate is scheduled for Friday night? That's news? It's been scheduled for Friday night for a long time now.

The question has been whether the debate would go on, or whether the U.S. economy would plunge into a depression without one last chance for Americans to ramp up their level of small-D depression for the capital-D event.

What's the recycling number for kids?

Ever since Nebraska's "safe haven" law went into effect, a veil has been lifted somehow. And we see into a society's heart of darkness.

"Safe haven" laws were designed to allow parents to drop off their unwanted infants at safe places, like fire stations or hospitals, in an effort to keep panicked mothers from just dumping their babies, period. That, or perhaps killing them outright.

THE 49 OTHER STATES passing such laws before Nebraska put age limits on children falling under their "no questions asked" drop-off provisions. For arcane reasons -- most of them aimed at getting around the objections of a single state senator -- our law didn't include an age limit.

No one thought that would be a big problem. It was, leading to an unending stream of stories in the Omaha World-Herald about parents dumping children who definitely were not newborns.

And today . . . this:

Child drop-offs under Nebraska's safe haven law have until now been individual affairs involving individual children.

But Wednesday evening at Creighton University Medical Center, a father dropped off nine children, all his.

The children ranged in age from 1 to 17 years, said Officer Michael Pecha, an Omaha police spokesman.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services was still gathering details late Wednesday and would not comment, department spokeswoman Kathie Osterman said.

She did clarify, however, the process by which children are handled once dropped off:

When a child is left, hospital staffers call local law enforcement. Police in most cases would place a child or children in emergency protective custody.

The county attorney recommends whether a child should remain in state custody or return home, and a judge ultimately decides on placement.

In the week-and-a-half before Wednesday, at least two teens and one preteen had been dropped off at eastern Nebraska hospitals.

The safe haven law was intended to protect unwanted newborns, but Nebraska's law does not set an age limit on children who can be left at hospitals. Many have interpreted that to mean children up to age 19 can be dropped off.

A FATHER. Abandoning his nine children. At a hospital.

Something is afoot out there. Parents are desperate, and children are expendable.

Children now are just another throwaway item in this age of "choice" -- as in "You get to choose your own reality" and "You get to choose whether your unborn baby lives or dies."

Kids . . . be good, eat your vegetables and don't piss off Mama or Daddy. It's important.