Lord Almighty, these are dull debates. They're excruciatingly dull. They induce a kind of physical pain after the first twenty minutes or so. They don't seem to be about anything.
If you read around on the Internet on political issues, as I do a little too much, you're way ahead of these two guys on the main issues of the day. You absolutely know that McCain and Obama are bullshitting their way through these seances. I believe in concrete examples for serious charges, so here's one: both the Republican and Democratic candidate promise direct relief for homeowners in foreclosure or in arrears on their mortgage payments through a government program of buying the mortgages and renegotiating the terms with reduced principal and a better interest rate. Gee, that's a helluva good idea. That might stabilize the housing market somewhat and do something for, you know, the American people in general.
So here's a question the somnambulant Tom Brokaw might have intoned: Where were you guys last week? Why did you vote yes on a program to buy "troubled assets" from the other end of the financial food chain, the banks and investment houses holding the mortgage-backed securities? It seems to me that used up the "available" (which is to say, "maybe borrowable") money to do much of anything. Is Congress going to authorize another $1 trillion to work the people's end of the deal?
Social Security came up. That's good; the question sent in from New Hampshire was pretty intelligent, certainly more informed than the debate in general. What do you do when the Social Security fund goes negative, that is, current inflows are insufficient to pay retirees? I don't think McCain or Obama understood the question. They immediately went off on some tangent about the system needing "reforming," and McCain, in his truly imbecilic way, started bragging about the actions Reagan took back in the 1980s. Yes, indeed: the FICA rates were increased sharply in the early 1980s (I should now: I was self-employed) to create a "surplus" to fund the Baby Boom. Where's the surplus, Popeye? It was all spent on the military, and the swiped money was replaced by "special" Treasury obligations and added to the national debt. The caller in New Hampshire knew that. What about Jack & Barry?
And, of course, not a single question on the linchpin issue: aside from saving a few billion here or there on this or that defense appropriation for some redundant laser-guided amphibious remote-controlled crawler tractor predator fighting vehicle, what are you guys going to do about the 750 military bases scattered over the globe and the $1 trillion spent annually on defense, wars, intelligence and "homeland security?" Is it actually necessary or prudent for a country in decline to spend as much as the rest of the world combined in order to exercise a hegemony which the rest of the world resents and is increasingly hostile about financing?
Perhaps, as I keep reminding myself, it has become simply impossible to discuss real solutions to real problems. The ship of state, on its collision course with an iceberg, can be nudged slightly to port or starboard but no fundamental course corrections are permitted by the rules of "safe debating" or government as usual. I think Obama and McCain end up in roughly the same spot from different points on the compass. McCain is just a mediocre thinker, a Bircherite and knee-jerk reactionary who has bought into his own nonsense about being a "maverick." Obama, struggling mightily to overcome the huge handicaps of being a minority with a Muslim middle name, is constrained by all the Trip Wires, Third Rails and No-Go Zones of modern American politics, and thinking through the daunting matrix of taboos anterior to saying anything makes his responses tepid and dull. I am sure in a private conversation he would be very different and far more open about the reality the country faces. He wouldn't be talking about sending "more brigades" to Afghanistan to "finish the job," for example. (Seven years later? Can we even remember what the job was?) He ventured his true feelings when he talked about "guns and religion" as opiates of the masses and got burned for his honesty. He was spot on; of course the appeal to the heavens for salvation, and the hunkering down with a semi-auto, increase during times of great economic stress. But the First Rule of American politicking is that you cannot tell Americans they have problems of their own making or that their reactions are irrational. We are, after all, Exceptional.
So he's got my vote. He will be more creative and dynamic as an actual President than he can be in this ridiculous charade we call the election process.
One more debate to go. I can hardly wait.
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