In today's pages: Metrolink, Wall Street, the California budget and John McCain's computer use
What Californians would get in exchange for this irresponsible worry-about-it-next-year budget is, lawmakers say, no borrowing, although that's demonstrably untrue. And no tax increases -- except for the fact that many taxpayers will have to pay earlier, which will ultimately cost them because money is more valuable today than tomorrow.
On the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg comes up with a new criticism of Barack Obama: he's lousy at negative campaigning. He focuses on the Obama ad that mocks rival John McCain, whose war injuries make typing painful, for not knowing how to send an e-mail. As Goldberg points out, this is the same Sen. McCain who, as a member and former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has been steeped in telecom and Internet legislation.
Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University (and my former boss in the Times' Biz section), sees elements of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" repeated in today's America, even though the current economic downturn is nothing like the Great Depression that sent Tom Joad's family from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California's Central Valley:
Most notably, income inequality today is at its highest level since the late 1920s. Adjusted for inflation, median household income was actually lower last year than in 2000. Hunger is on the rise. Fueling a considerable amount of hardship is the mortgage industry crisis -- an episode that brings to mind Steinbeck's depiction of banks as rapacious monsters.
As in the 1930s, the issue is what to do about all this.
Finally, Hugh Pope, who directs the Turkey project for International Crisis Group, sees signs of rapprochement in a World Cup preliminary match between teams from Turkey and Armenia:
The 2-0 victory for the Turks was beside the point. All eyes were on the two countries' presidents, sitting together in the stadium -- albeit behind bulletproof glass -- in a brave attempt to bury one of the Caucasus' most bitter legacies.
I have never been able to get excited about Logan Act violations. I was more interested that the man who captured his party's Presidential nomination largely on the basis of his (supposed) unwavering anti-war stance now seems to be quietly manuevering himself into a position on the war very similar to the Republicans'.
In an update, Taheri makes the point better than I:
Taheri also adds this plea to Obama:
Posted by: Aldo | September 17, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Hey, Aldo -- either you're not leaving a real e-mail address, or you're not checking your Inbox. I sent you a question over the weekend -- e-mail me please, or call me at the Times, 800-L A TIMES.
As for the Taheri story, not sure why the news guys weren't on that one. It's an interesting policy question, tho -- if you were in the Iraqi government, wouldn't you try to negotiate a better deal with the lame duck than take a chance on the replacement? And why would an Iraqi official (Taheri's source) say something that would so clearly undermine Obama unless it served his interests to do so? My guess: because he doesn't like the idea of U.S. troops leaving anytime soon, and he thinks McCain's approach would favor his particular interests more than Obama's.
The NYTimes' take on this looks bad for Obama if you're of the opinion that Bush's handling of the war shouldn't be challenged, at least not while he's president. But if you think Bush shouldn't be able to dictate policy after Jan. 20, 2009, then you might share Obama's desire not to be locked into a multi-year commitment by a guy who's soon to be out of office. I haven't thought much about this one, so I don't have an opinion on it. But again, it raises all sorts of intriguing questions beyond the don't-undermine-the-commander-in-chief meme.
Re: Fannie and Freddie -- We've been pretty generic on the political-influence angle. Again, just guessing, but it may be because that's a Washington angle, and the folks doing the vast majority of the writing on the issue for us have been business reporters and bloggers in L.A. The sorry history of Fannie and Freddie as patronage swamps is a great saga, and maybe it will get more attention once tax dollars start flowing into those companies. Until about a week ago, though, they were (ahem) private firms that didn't drink from the public trough. (that is, not since the 1970s when Fannie was de-nationalized).
Posted by: Jon Healey | September 16, 2008 at 03:01 PM
Hi Jon!
The biggest story floating around the net is Amir Taheri's claim that the Obama campaign "has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence." The McCain camp has issued a statement on it, but I haven't seen any mention of the story in the LAT. I sure wish you guys were as aggressive about reporting on Obama as you are on Palin. She is, after all, only a VP candidate.
In my opinion, the most important story at the moment is the debacle at Fannie and Freddie. The Times has been strangely quiet about this issue too.
Have a good day sir. I'm headed back to the blogosphere to find out what other important news wasn't in my paper this morning.
Posted by: Aldo | September 16, 2008 at 10:14 AM