Rogue Columnist

The GOP declares intellectual bankruptcy

So it comes to an end. Much of me still believes wealthy Republican John McCain III will win -- and if that happens, all of me believes it will be national suicide. Never forget the powerful interests that believe they have too much to lose from an Obama presidency.

It's notable that the McCain campaign has been all attacks, all the time, against Barack Obama. McCain has no real platform, no serious position on anything. He would indeed continue not only the Bush policies, but the conservative policies that have brought us into this vale of tears. That the Republicans are left sputtering "communist" and "terrorist" shows the complete bankruptcy, exhaustion and corruption of conservatism. John McCain, who preens about his honor, has run a historically dishonorable campaign. It reached farcical proportions when the McCain campaign attacked a respected Palestinian scholar (and Christian) as a terrorist bud of Barack's -- when in fact McCain had helped the man get funding for democracy efforts in Palestine.

Republicans also left warning about one-party government. Understandably, that didn't bother them through most of the Bush years, when even the federal judiciary had been turned into another branch of the Republican hack political machine.

Gunslingers, sheriffs and the militarization of law enforcement

By Cal Lash, Guest Rogue

Human social evolution created the gunslinger.

Human Cowardice bought us the political lawman.

Since the beginning of socialization and the family unit, group control has been administered by the dominant figure in a group. Groups grew larger and became villages, towns, cities, states, kingdoms and empires.

In Europe, royalty hired out tax collection, to the “High Sheriff.”  The Sheriff also attended to other civil disputes, attended royal ceremonies and was responsible the enforcement of some criminal statutes. As Europe grew, municipalities provided their own law enforcement constabulary and contemporary High Sheriffs now have few genuine responsibilities and their functions are largely representational.

Marshal Wyatt Earp may or may not have been the best thing for Tombstone, Arizona, but he set the tone for paid protection along with other gunslingers and companies like Pinkerton. These hired “lawmen” were given a badge and the responsibility of making a town safe for the people who out of fear believed this was the way to create a safe environment. Different versions exist of the deeds and the resultant benefits or determents of people like Wyatt Earp and Tom Horn, who was a hired killer for cattleman. Horn’s killing of “rustlers” was tolerated until he allegedly shot a young boy.  Eventually many citizens in the old west began to wonder if the hired gunslinger was not worse than the problem they hired the gunman to solve.

A new low in Phoenix's war on the poor

I supposed it's a small thing in comparison with a region that celebrates a sheriff ordered by a federal judge to stop "depriving jail inmates of adequate medical screening and care, feeding them unhealthy food and housing them in unsanitary conditions." This from the New York Times, another chamber-of-commerce moment for Phoenix. A small thing in a city where 15 percent of the population is below the poverty line, where wages lag far behind competing cities (yet living costs don't), the gap between rich and poor is one of the biggest in the nation and the homeless are left in the deadly heat, on the streets despite "get tough" few-benefits policies. A small thing versus the thuggish persecution of the immigrant population that keeps the economy running and gives the affluent their inexpensive lawn services and housekeeping.

Still, the decision by the Phoenix City Council to eliminate what it considers "late night and early morning" bus service should rank right up there in the Hall of Shame. All trips will be eliminated before 5 a.m. and after -- get this -- 10 p.m. The "nation's fifth largest city" won't have any bus service after 10 p.m. Dayton, Ohio, has bus service after 10 p.m.!

City council members who drive about Phoenix's 500 square miles in air conditioning and accompanied by their entourages seem to have no idea of how many Phoenicians live: in low-wage jobs -- often holding down more than one -- working overnight shifts and without cars. Much of this is part of the tourism, construction or retail economy that is about all this "city" has. Have these august solons ever looked out their SUV windows late at night to see a crowded central city bus stop -- or are they safely at home in their faux stucco suburban digs.

Endorsing John McCain

I long ago stopped reading the opinion pages of the Arizona Republic. The diversity of opinion that former editor of the editorial pages Keven Ann Wiley brought to the paper is long gone, replaced by a plodding, deeply unserious recycling of right-wing talking points and boosterism that would be hilarious if the stakes were not so huge. Yes, to declare an interest, I chose to leave the paper in 2007 rather than accept a new assignment that would have eliminated my centrist ("socialist) column.

Still, I came across a mention in the New York Times that wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III had won the endorsement of his "home" state newspaper.

The endorsement is remarkable:

We have seen the irascible McCain. The bawdy and irreverent McCain. And, yes, the temperamental McCain. Likewise, we here in Arizona have seen the former Navy pilot and war hero evolve - slowly and with lots of fits and starts - into a statesman. We have witnessed John McCain become a leader - not only of a delegation from a fast-growing Southwestern state, but into a national leader with a reassuring habit of stepping to the front when things seemed most difficult.

It's almost as if we've been watching two different presidential campaigns. Obama has a big lead in newspaper endorsements, including many Bush '04 editorial boards that switched sides. But not in Phoenix.

Yet another financial swindle sneaks into the 'rescue'

So what did Americans really get when Congress approved a bill giving the Treasury power to spend some $700 billion to stem the financial panic? It's becoming clear that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has mishandled the crisis in typical Bushian fashion. First with incompetence, by allowing the investment banking sector he came from to march over the edge of the abyss over the past year, long after it the cataclysmic risks to the system were clear. Then, in mad improvisation, he allowed Lehman to fail. He refused congressional suggestions of a direct capital infusion into the banks -- until it was clear it "buy toxic debt" scheme wasn't working and Britain and the EU led the way with direct infusions. Brownie, call your office.

Also typically Bushian was the stampede to act, on a bailout plan with no oversight that would have given Paulson unprecedented power. Iraq, anyone. Congress made some oversight improvements, and Obama has made it clear he will alter the "rescue" further if he wins the White House. But everybody had a gun to his or her head to "do something" as the markets collapsed.

Of course, we're not dealing with drowning poor, black folks in NOLA, here. So ultimately, the administration was willing to take any "socialist" action to save its wealthy friends in the investment banks, the hedge funds, etc. So maybe the Brownie analogy is not quite right. Yet we should be on guard. Remember another hallmark of Bush governance: enriching the politically connected and powerful through privatization. How could that happen in the "financial rescue"?

Now it's becoming clear

A little fun, from the Web

Dear Red States...

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and almost all the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California. To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

We do wish you success in Iraq and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes not to mention the aggressive bees, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite! Thank you!

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws,  53 percent still believe that Saddam was involved in 9/11. And, 61 percent of you crazy b*****ds believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too.

You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico .

Peace out,
Blue States

Who to blame

So Alan Greenspan is shocked, shocked that gambling was going on in the casino that he and his fellow radicals made of the capital markets. In his testimony before Congress Thursday, he talked about how stunned he was that the markets weren’t self-regulating, that speculation and greed led to this disaster, which he likened to a “once in a century” financial tsunami.

But this is no act of God. The ongoing financial collapse is the direct result of the deregulation, trade, privatization and tax policies enacted by Alan Greenspan and the other rigid ideologues of the Republican Party over the past quarter of a century. The longtime Fed chairman is a disciple of the author Ayn Rand, whose advocacy of a brutal individualism has been turned into a devil-take-the-hindmost reality that would make Atlas blush.

It’s important for the American voter to understand this. The collapse of their savings, the deferment of their retirement dreams, the loss of their homes, the decline in their earnings, the elimination of their jobs – all has been the result of very conscious policies. They were promised an "ownership society," but, as Barack Obama said, the reality is that most Americans are on their own.

If Americans understand this, the election will not be in doubt. And, God willing, the calamity will discredit this extremist philosophy, just as happened in 1932, for decades to come. For this orthodox ideological extremism is every bit as bankrupt and failed as all its false prophet predecessors. Alan Greenspan and company, including former Sen. Phil Gramm, the great – and greatly compensated by the banking industry – deregulator and economic guru to wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III, are the most dangerous of men: true believers.

Oh, yeah? Well, your mama's a socialist!

With all the screams of "socialism" by the McCain camp, a thoughtful electorate might shake its heads and move on, or perhaps use this as a teaching moment. I have yet to believe we have such an electorate, but who knows?

If you are of a certain age, when history was still taught in American schools, you know that socialists believed that the "means of production" should be owned by the people, not by private interests. Railroads, mines, utilities, banks, insurers -- it's a very 19th and early 20th century concept (unless you're the Bush administration and Hank Paulson). Real socialism also never took hold in America, not even in the Great Depression. For one thing, it was co-opted by the Progressives and the New Deal. Socialists weren't communists. The two detested each other.

Europe saw the evolution of social democracy, which combined a large welfare state and activist government with democratic freedoms -- this is pretty much the governing model in much of the EU today. In America, you could probably fit all the true socialists into a mid-sized tavern or faculty lounge.

No, when wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III and his running mate, the unqualified and dangerous Sarah Palin, yell that Obama is a "socialist," they're not giving a history lesson. They're engaging in soft McCarthyism.

An implosion of Arizona Republicans?

That's the take of Dawn Teo on Huffington Post:

The Republican Party in John McCain's home state is fracturing under the weight of a series of misconduct charges that threaten to sink the party's already deeply troubled Arizona candidacies. The GOP problems here, which include infighting and ideological splits, underline arguments made nationally in the final weeks of the presidential campaign that the Republican party is in crisis.

Do pit bulls shop at Neimans?

Just an average hockey mom, doing battle for the "real America" against those liberal elitists. Except Sarah Palin was clad in $150,000 worth of clothes paid for by Republican contributors. We've come a long way from the time when Pat Nixon wore a "respectable Republican cloth coat." Cindy, wife of the wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III spent $300,000 on one dress for the convention -- but at least it was her money.

Keep up on the latest reality-based reporting on the "Arizona senator" and Sarah Palin on Rogue's McCain Page.

"X" marks the what?

I suppose it's necessary to note the new downtown Phoenix marketing campaign, based on "X marks the spot" -- get it, "Downtown PhoeniX." How much did the brainos at the Downtown Phoenix Partnership pay a Scottsdale marketing outfit for this piece of originality and brilliance? Journalists apparently don't ask such impertinent questions anymore.

At least the insipid Copper Square is gone -- a name I warned against when it was rolled out eight years ago and yet was flogged tirelessly and tiresomely by the Partnership -- and how much money was wasted on that? Enough to subsidize a downtown drug store? Copper Square? Who, after all, wants to live in a city without a downtown? And what did copper have to do with Phoenix (nothing)? That "branding effort" was mainly confusing. So many times people would stop me on a sidewalk downtown and ask where was "the Copper Square?"

No doubt in a metropolitan area with some of the poorest-educated, poorest-paid people, living in suburban subdivisions and voting overwhelmingly for wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III and the unqualified and dangerous Sarah Palin, there's a need to sell downtown. On the Republic's site, where the lunatic fringe holds court in commenting on stories, the "X" news was greeted with comments such as "Xtra crime" and "Xtra homeless."

Steal the vote, 2008

Check out this "one-stop shop" to monitor election fraud. Meanwhile comes word that a report on the easy manipulation of electronic voting machines in New Jersey is being suppressed. In North Carolina, a close state, the ballot doesn't count your presidential vote is you choose a straight ticket. As Michael Carmichael on HuffPost notes, vote suppression is the end-game for the failed McCain-Palin ticket. It can happen in many guises. And for eight years, the corporate media have been asleep on this real threat to the fabric of democracy.

John McCain: He'll always have Phoenix

Fifty-nine percent. That's the lead in Arizona for wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III, according to the Rasmussen poll. It's perhaps all you need to know about today's Arizona, already a burden on federal taxpayers and likely to become a disastrous drag on the nation in the decades ahead.

A casual viewer might think this is a tremendous vote of confidence for McCain, as "these are the voters who know him best." In fact, they are the voters who likely know him least -- with some exceptions I'll get to in a moment. McCain has rarely been a presence in his "home state." He rarely rises from his self-anointed position of national leadership to address an issue facing Arizona, unless it is to thunder "no!" As Arizona has changed and urbanized, as its economy has become more backward and it has skidded along on the bottom of almost every scale of social well-being, as its needs have ballooned -- McCain has done nothing.

For most of these 59 percent, McCain is a television and talk-radio presence. They are the right-wing faithful and "low information voters" who came to Arizona to escape "socialism" -- i.e., any obligations to society. Because of the sacrifices of real Arizonans and their leaders who came before McCain -- and vast amounts of federal money ("socialism"), they get to unthinkingly live in an air-conditioned, water-abundant (or so it seems), wide-freeway, flood controlled "resort." It would not exist if earlier Arizonans had followed the prescriptions of McCain and the rest of the Republican delegation -- but this is deeper thinking than we can expect. In this transient place, most know nothing of its history or critical issues.

Lies, damned lies, and rail transit

At least two big rail transit measures are on the ballot around the country this November, maybe more. In Seattle, voters will be asked to approve light-rail expansion. And in California, there's a truly transformative measure to build a high-speed rail network.

Both will probably fail, both due to the financial crisis but, sadly, also to the pervasive myths and muddled thinking that keep America frozen with an increasingly unworkable 1965 transportation network. This post will attempt to take a few of these on:

• Buses: Many people who claim to support transit advocate expanding bus service, saying buses are cheaper and more flexible. Unfortunately this is also the bait-and-switch position of anti-rail, anti-transit forces -- they will initially support bus transit but then oppose actually funding it. In any event, while buses have their place, they are not enough for a balanced, multi-modal 21st century transportation system.

Buses get stuck in the same traffic congestion that snarls cars -- and politicians will never create enough bus-only lanes to alleviate this. In downtown Seattle, a bus-riders heaven, buses are routinely clotted up even with bus lanes. Your bus is not only late, but it can be the fourth or fifth one back in a line stopped to take on passengers. Good luck getting there if you walk slowly. Buses with stairs are hard for many people to enter. And buses have a sigma in many communities. As I say, buses have a valuable place. But they can't replace rail for reliability, ease of entry, ease of riding, rider appeal and passenger-miles-per-unit of energy.

Weekend reading

• New York magazine writes the most penetrating piece yet on Palin, Wasilla and Alaska, and just how different they are.
• Rolling Stone on unprecedented Republican efforts to block the vote.
• In The Nation, a forum on the damage done by Bush to the judicial system and the prospects for the future. And what about that youth vote?
• Watch this.
• And be sure to read the New York Times' in-depth profile of Cindy McCain. Wow.

The McCain-Palin war on journalists continues.

We saw the worst of this with the police state in St. Paul for the Republican National Convention (shamefully undercovered by the corporate media). Here, a reporter was assaulted as a Palin rally. No wonder Palin's staff keeps her away from news reports so she won't get "depressed."

Is it already over for Obama, V?

Barack Obama is correct to warn his supporters against complacency, even though the polls suggest he is on track for a big victory. The Democrats have a long history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Obama's biggest danger is the convergence of interests that believe they stand to lose if he becomes president, specifically the corporate oligarchy that has increased its grip on the nation over the past eight years. They might do fine in an Obama presidency -- he is, in fact, far too much of a centrist/pragmatist for many on the left. But the oligarchs can't take the chance. He must be taken out.

Another danger remains the racist duhs and ignos. Obama and McCain are basically tied in Ohio. Ohio! A state that has been ravaged by the policies of conservatism, and yet one where too many white people will preserve the status quo rather than vote for a mixed-race American.

Put these together and you have the McCain camp's last, best hope: Steal the election. This is what the ACORN flap is about. The organization actually brought to authorities attention the fraudulent registrations that have made news. These are the fake names provided by paid petition gatherers (you Zonies know about them) who get paid by the name. They won't actually vote. This is a distraction from actually voter fraud, something Republicans got away with in Florida in 2000, and most notoriously, in Ohio in 2004. Now a federal court, bowing to a Republican lawsuit, has ordered the state to verify all new registered voters -- at a time when Democratic registration is soaring. It's a task that can't be done. The scam is all about disenfranchising people, especially poor people. Do it in enough states, and McCain has a chance. Then there are those voting machines...

So it ain't over. McCain mentioned a threat to "the fabric" of Democracy from ACORN. He got it half right. Republican voter suppression and fraud is just that, and Democrats must fight it and not concede in the face of another hanky-panky election.

UPDATE: The Roberts/Scalia/Alito Supreme Court just backed Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, turning aside the Republican challenge. Wow.

Things that can't be said in presidential debates

Barack Obama has apparently found the perfect vibe to reach the "average American" low- lower- lowest-information voters in the debates. While I am screaming at the television -- don't let McCain get away with that! mention this! -- he just cruises along and polls show him winning the encounters. Still, some thoughts for the high-information Rogue Columnist readers:

It will be interesting to see who this "Joe the Plumber" really is, (or really even a plumber) if it still matters. He seems to be a right-winger, if not an outright plant. Apparently he opposes Social Security, among other "socialist" outrages. If so, he fits a type of small-businessman or woman who is never envisioned as politicians sing their hosannas to small business. Ones like the woman in Phoenix, also owner of a very successful plumbing business, who testified before a sympathetic legislative committee of the Kookocracy. "Why should I pay taxes for schools?" was among her complaints.

The ugly small-business owner is one of the backbones of the conservative movement, believing he or she has no common obligations to society, but is a victim. Their grievances are legion. These owners rarely offer healthcare or decent wages to their employees. They employ illegal immigrants, even as they rage against the "brown hordes." They envy those who dodge taxes, if they're not doing it themselves. Why should we celebrate them? If you're making more than $250,000 a year, you owe the society that allowed you to do so. If you can't hack it, go out of business and get a job. See how all too many employees are treated in America governed by Republicans, the party that wrecked America. (spread the meme).

Across America

The past two weeks were a bad time for a financial columnist to be gone -- or maybe they were a fine time. I've been warning about this collapse for years, not as a wish but as a concern. That our practices of deregulation, consolidation, hollowing out of the economy and building a vast Ponzi-scheme economy in its place would inevitably come crashing down.

Gone was a train trip from Seattle to Baltimore, where the Bouchercon mystery writers' convention was honoring my editor, Barbara Peters, and publisher, Robert Rosenwald. Susan and I wanted to take Amtrak across this big land before Republican John Sidney McCain III was elected and followed through on his longtime obsession to shut down the national passenger rail system. In fact, Amtrak does a fine job, especially considering the years of underfunding it must fight against, and the fact that it is a mere tenant on the railroads it travels (outside of the Northeast Corridor). It's interesting, and heartbreaking, to consider what we might have if we had been investing in high-speed train networks instead of financial swindles over the past 20 years. Even now, the trains are packed and popular.

The train forces one out of the crazy rhythms of flying and driving. You see how vast and varied this nation remains, especially in the places left behind by the Interstate highway system. Barely a golden arch profanes the route of the Empire Builder across the northern tier. There are the rotting, bell-towered schoolhouses sitting forlornly on the depopulated Great Plains, the little farm towns, down on their luck for decades but hanging on, the mountaintops our forebears conquered with blood and tears to lay steel rails from coast-to-coast. Anxieties about stolen elections and falling Dow give way to the gentle swaying of the train.

The mob mentality continues...

if you haven't seen it, here is the remarkable YouTube video of citizens at a Palin rally recently. Vile is among the words that spring to mind. Desperation is another. Meanwhile, in another McCain-Palin rally, a supporter shouts "kill him"...and you know who they mean.

The house of cards falls down

When experts and commentators talk about the "crisis of confidence" or "crisis of trust" in the markets, it can be read in different ways. One: it's a nice way of saying, a la Phil Gramm, the recession is in our heads and if we just had some confidence happy days could return. Two, confidence and trust in the system have collapsed for reasons, including bankers not lending because they know companies will fail, and people in general no longer trusting the economic "House that Ronald Reagan (and Phil Gramm) Built."

It is most decidedly the latter. If nothing else, the Great Disruption we are now experiencing should discredit the "free market" theories that led us to this pass. We shall see. When the Depression hit, the world was awash with alternatives to capitalism, most of them bad, but also with an engaged electorate and a middle class that read. Now we have video games and social networking sites. The igno-geeks must be truly baffled as their future vanishes, even though they kill at Grand Theft Auto version whatever.

Where's Cheney? As I write, George W. Bush is preparing to make another pitiful "statement" as markets plummet around the world. The veep is nowhere to be seen, running things as he did in Iraq. Perhaps he is preparing his defense fund, or place in a country with no extradition agreement. Meanwhile, Paulson and Bernanke are in change. Yet they represent the wisdom of the old order that is in crisis. They can't fully comprehend what is happening, for it so goes against all their learned learning, all their orthodoxies. The Age of Greenspan is over.

Add cities to the list of victims of the Great Disruption

Some of America's most prosperous cities are also among the casualties of what I'm calling the first stage of The Great Disruption -- the current financial crisis.

Charlotte, a middling Southern town built into a city by two money center banks, will see its world changed radically whether Wachovia is bought by Wells Fargo or Citigroup. At least one-fifth of its jobs are in banking, and these are high-paid corporate jobs with benefits. Virtually every advance in Charlotte, particularly its revived downtown, came from the leadership of Wachovia and Bank of America. Now half of that will be gone, and the claim to being America's second-largest banking center.

I make a prediction: Bank of America will soon move its headquarters to New York. The decision will likely be camouflaged in language of "dual headquarters" or some such corporate claptrap. But BofA's best and brightest will feel an increasing need to be in what's left of America's financial capital. After all, the men who built these powerhouses as a powerful, personal gift to Charlotte are retired.

A note to readers

I'll be taking a relaxing train trip to Baltimore and back, in case McCain wins and kills Amtrak, attending the Bouchercon mystery convention. I'll post when I can, but in the meantime, enjoy the archives and in-depth report pages.

Downtown Phoenix update, gentle and honest

The 31-story Sheraton opened in Phoenix this week, to the predictable cheerleading that it will "revive" downtown. I hate to sun on your parade, but my recent visit "home" showed that the central city is still facing mammoth challenges, and that, of course, bodes ill for the economic and social health of the region.

Let's start with the good news, for we always have to be mindful of "the Valley's" real-estate-promoter mindset and fragile ego. The thing looks less bad than many had feared; as it was going up an editorialist at the Republic memorably likened it to an overgrown motel by the Interstate. It is absolutely essential to the success of the Convention Center, a business where Phoenix should excel, rather than being an also-ran with Grand Rapids as it was before the expansion.

A modest mid-rise is going up, just north of the Valley Center tower (I use the old name because who knows who will own the bank tomorrow), and at least one at CityScape. Not sure if there are many tenants. ASU has added a couple of buildings and is expanding the nursing college. The Grace Court development is coming along. And light rail is in -- light rail has succeeded virtually everywhere in America, so Phoenix will have to work really, really hard to screw it up.

Now, if you feel better you can stop reading now. Or read on for the unfortunate "rest of the story."

Today's must read

Comes from Rolling Stone's new, in-depth profile of Republican John Sidney McCain III, a man whose reality is at often sharp odds with his carefully crafted -- and media enabled persona.

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

And be sure to read the profile of "Mad Dog Palin," too.

A president 'just like me'

In a season where it's hard to pick the most frightening development, here's a leading candidate: the notion that the president and vice president should be "average Joes, just like me." It's especially scary considering that the "average" American now reads less, knows less history and is more ignorant about the world than most of the generations of the 20th century -- the American Century.

Now comes Sarah Palin, claiming she is a victim of the elites. She told radio host Hugh Hewitt, "Oh, I think they're just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It's time that normal Joe six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that's kind of taken some people off guard, and they're out of sorts, and they're ticked off about it."

It is a sign of national madness if one has to point out the complex issues and challenges facing the nation's leaders. While years of preening and bullying in Congress are less meaningful (Republican John Sidney McCain III), our situation cries out for officials with sound judgment, wide knowledge, supple intellect not calcified in dogma, and curiosity. Palin has shown none of these traits in her tightly controlled interviews -- quite the opposite. We're reminded of a less qualified version of candidate George W. Bush. (And a little racist code there, in "normal...American"?)