Ann Davidow

The McCain campaign charges that Obama will raise taxes on all Americans. Apparently, since this threat always worked in the past Republicans figure they might as well give it a shot again this year, true or not. The Willie Horton gambit doesn't have the traction it once did but the tax thing always seems to get people's attention even if it doesn't have much to do with healing the nation's ills.

It is puzzling, though, that anyone claiming to be a serious candidate talks about issues in the abstract. McCain promises to balance the budget by the end of his first term with spending cuts and by winning the war in Iraq. He claims off-shore drilling will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, that gas-tax relief and another round of tax cuts would pull the nation out of its economic doldrums. And, he promises to create jobs, make health care "affordable and portable", encourage development of forty-five nuclear facilities and devise some kind of private-investment strategy to shore up Social Security

What's missing in all of these scenarios is anything specific about how current policy would change and what the ancillary costs might be if it did. For example, a gas-tax furlough would close down highway and bridge projects, occasioning a loss of jobs in those construction sectors. In any case such a proposal would never get through Congress so it turns out to be just one of those mindless, crowd-pleasing bromides.

And while nuclear energy is a clean, seemingly viable alternative, it comes with its own special set of problems. France satisfies much of its energy needs with its nuclear program. But identifying suitable waste-disposal sites to serve as "burying" grounds is the subject of intense debate there. According to the World Nuclear Association, "some useful ingredients of spent fuel can be recycled", but cooling periods for waste products range from twenty years to several lifetimes. And there are concerns about the possibility of contamination at whatever locations are chosen. Already in this country a plan to deposit nuclear residue at Yucca Mountain has raised a storm of protest in Nevada.

It would be refreshing if, at the outset, proposals were considered in the full light of what their implementation would mean. Coal extraction techniques in Kentucky and West Virginia continue to wreak terrible environmental consequences because of strip mining that lops off mountain tops allowing runoff to drift into nearby streams, clogging them and eventually obliterating them. Surely, the issue of nuclear waste should be addressed before starting ambitious reactor programs that could pose potential risks far more ponderous than those occurring in coal-mining regions.

And where would the spending cuts in McCain-world be made? Voters might like to know how their localities would be affected if some of their federal support systems were de-funded. Besides how does a continuation of the war in Iraq comport with budget restraint? The notion that somehow "winning" there would reap financial benefits here ignores the financial burden that has been incurred by borrowing and over-spending and the long-term effect the deficits created will have on the economy.

For argument's sake, then, why shouldn't the imposition of a small war tax be considered? If 100 million US taxpayers each paid five or ten dollars specifically for war funding, and Iraq, reportedly running a surplus, financed its own reconstruction, the dynamic of our Iraqi adventure would be significantly altered; at last the American people would be contributing directly to the war effort. We or our descendents will have to pay for our government's folly in the end anyway. So if we aren't able to leave any time soon, maybe we should get creative about how to pay for staying.

That would be raising taxes in a way of course, and who would be so bold as to suggest such a thing? Leaders are good at shifting the conversation away from ill-conceived policies and lack of accountability and talking beside the point about such things as tax cuts and drilling for oil. Taking a new direction to find real solutions would be to admit being mistaken in the first place. The McCain feel-good generalities are not, contrary to his assertions, "change we can believe in". It remains for Obama to take a stab at touching base with reality and charting a course for meaningful change.

Standard media fare is dominated by insensitive, egotistical anchors who care more about their image and the ability to deliver one-liners than they do about honest reporting and solid analysis. Hillary supporters railed against what they saw as a misogynistic tilt during the primaries. But that sense of things seemed less noteworthy than the racial undercurrent running just below the surface and occasionally bubbling up. In fact the real problem with media coverage is more general and far more insidious.

The glee with which pundits feed on the minutia of politics as if devouring some tidbit of celebrity gossip shows a lack of journalistic gravitas. The Fox News Channel is such a farcical turn on itself it is almost too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Yet a sizeable audience plants itself at the feet of Fox as if its news and views offered something of real value, leaving Fox viewers dangerously misinformed.

But while Fox may field the worst purveyors of intellectually challenged reportage, it isn't the only example of media intransigence. Sean Hannity may be a shameless McCain advocate, but, if Fox tops the list in terms of bias, other news organizations offer up guests who lean one way or the other but add little substance to the political debate. It's as if some producer runs around trying to find representatives of every opinion and throws them in front of a camera to provide a range of views, well founded or not.

Pundits like Chris Matthews on MSNBC, feel compelled to tell viewers how smart they are, as in ‘when I worked for so and so' or ‘I've been around politics since the beginning of time.' It isn't only that Matthews talks over his guests to showcase his vast knowledge of the way things work, it's his annoying habit of pretending to ask a guest tough questions and then saying at the end "you're a good guy" or something of the sort, as if to ensure his entrée into whatever sphere of influence that particular guest still commands.

And has there ever been anything more disgusting than the neutral treatment accorded Jesse Helms since his death? It may be unseemly to speak ill of the dead but, really, what lifts a master of bigotry and ignoble statesmanship to a place where he can be spoken of without a verbal shudder? And as an example of how screwed up the congressional seniority system can be, Jesse Helms as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was about as ludicrous as things get. His fear-mongering about black voter registration in North Carolina and his isolationist and narrow-minded views were an insult to anyone who values this country's democratic principles.

Disturbingly, Charles Black, who helped Helms craft his racist campaign strategy, is now part of the McCain inner circle. The infamous Helms "white hands" commercial suggesting a white man hadn't been hired because a "minority" had gotten his job is said to have been inspired by Black. He insisted, however, on the McNeil-Lehrer Newshour (11/5/90) that there was nothing racial about the campaign and that he only "...advised Jesse Helms to do what he's always done." Well, speaking for one of America's last great racists, that was probably enough.

Media's peripatetic Pat Buchanan proclaimed Helms one of ‘the most important conservatives next to Ronald Reagan.' That is an astonishing statement - - something less than a badge of honor for the former president and a real stretch for Helms. Presumably, conservatives needn't adhere to the Helms racist approach by curbing minority voter registration or by taking an absolutist, unilateral approach to foreign affairs. Unfortunately, many latter-day conservatives still embrace the same profoundly un-American positions in their quest for political dominance.

MSNBC'S Joe Scarborough traveled a particularly low road last week. Standing in for David Gregory on Race for the White House he told Rachel Madow, when she laughed and said he was "so wrong" about something, that ‘she had certainly got the "Hillary Clinton cackle" down.' And these folks wonder why they are often accused of misogynistic attitudes. Considering that regulars Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson are never ridiculed when they regularly burst into baffling inane laughter, it was infuriating that Scarborough should demean Madow in such a ham-handed, insulting manner and gather up Hillary Clinton along with her.

Dan Abrams has a segment on his show, Verdict, called "why people hate Washington"; dull-witted loudmouths like Scarborough serve to remind people why they hate the mainstream media.

Does this election cycle hold the promise of meaningful change in a country suffering from the effects of a government that has failed on every conceivable level? Not if things continue on their current course in which the game of ‘gotcha' politics has such great media-appeal. As Democratic strategist, Chris Kofinis put it, when you don't have any really good ideas you resort to the "politics of mass distraction."

Thus, the McCain camp keeps referring to Obama's decision opting out of public financing as a character flaw, for example. But, while Obama did say he would discuss the funding issue with McCain it had become increasingly clear during the primaries that McCain couldn't control supporters who continued to trumpet irrational, hate-filled diatribes against Obama. Federal funding per se represents only part of the equation. Single-issue groups and 527s are free to spend as much as they wish beyond whatever public funds are provided to national-party candidates. And therein lies the rub.

Illustrative of the inherent problem posed by the influence of such groups is the disturbing fact that McCain has enlisted the services of Bud Day, a member of the ill-named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - - the 527 that was so damaging to John Kerry when he ran for president. Defenders of Day still support a position disputed by the actual members of Kerry's swift boat. No matter the truth, however,"Swift Boaters for Truth" succeeded in disparaging a decorated war hero to rally support for Bush in 2004.

Recently many swift boat veterans have been saying they'd like their good name back. They feel their service and patriotism have been diminished by the perception that they are all just a bunch of politically-motivated hacks rather than men who served their country bravely and with honor. There is more than a touch of irony, then, about McCain's solicitation of Swift-Boater Day to attack General Wesley Clark for saying that, while no-one questions McCain's valor, his military experience, in and of itself, didn't necessarily prepare him to be Commander in Chief. Clark may have erred in the tone of his remarks, but McCain consistently alludes to his military service as an unassailable validation of his gravitas, an assertion open to interpretation.

That the McCain campaign would work so feverishly to twist Clark's remarks into an attack on his war record is just another example of how he and his surrogates distort facts - - a disappointing, but all too frequent, occurrence on "the straight-talk express." And then, goodness, gracious, Senator Webb suggested McCain should "calm down" and that, in any case, military service shouldn't be the focus of political campaigns. Well if that didn't blow the lid off a simmering tempest in a teapot. McCain, playing the offended victim, said Obama should dispatch Clark post haste for his bad. And squirrelly campaign workers activated their quick-response team to assert that Webb's remarks were evidence of a vast Obamakin conspiracy to disparage McCain's reputation as a proud warrior. And besides, we are told, McCain's policies are the real meat of his candidacy.

But what exactly are McCain's big ideas? Some say Obama is better at speechifying than at clarifying his positions. Yet such charges aren't borne out by his many policy proposals. McCain, on the other hand, is guilty of fabulous exaggerations in defining an agenda he likes to call "change you can trust." What change is that exactly? Is it the belief that "market forces", tax cuts and competition will re-invigorate the economy? Is it that off-shore drilling and nuclear power plants will address our energy needs in a responsible, far-sighted manner?  Is the ‘successful' surge that was supposed to allow Iraq to stand up so we could stand down now the reason we should stand pat in Iraq for the foreseeable future?

In what passes for insight on MSNBC, two of its designated political analysts, Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson, agreed on Wednesday morning's telecast that McCain's "best shot" is to "go after" Obama as a "risky" choice while constantly repeating the mantra, drill, drill, drill. That such a limited, and basically issue-free, agenda should form the core of a campaign strategy might help to explain why the McCain camp spends entire news cycles expressing outrage about imaginary slights.

Watching Professor John Yoo and David Addington dance around questions when they appeared before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights was a jaw-dropping experience - - a moment of truth that derived not so much from the answers given by the two subjects of inquiry but rather more from a default position as they wiggled around and away from addressing in a forthright manner what they were asked.

Strangely, after his aggressively assertive memos regarding executive power and torture, Yoo was evasive and prone to parsing every statement with comments such as "I refer you to my opening statement" which drew angry interruptions from various members of the committee to ‘just answer the question yes or no.' When he wasn't doing that he often turned to a Justice Department representative seated behind him for advice as to whether he could reply to specific questions about interrogation techniques, how they were applied and who authorized them. And when asked if his legal opinions and definitions of torture had been implemented, there was a long convoluted harangue between Yoo and questioner regarding the meaning of the word "implemented."

Yoo's early memos claim a unique insight into "the mindset of the framers" who would, according to his analysis, have endorsed the president's power of "unilateral warmaking." (The Nation, Stephen Holmes, 4/13/06) Yet his diffidence with the committee suggested that he might have some concerns about how his opinions shaped policies regarding detentions and what the president likes to call "enhanced interrogation methods" - - to say nothing of how broadly this administration has interpreted its war powers. When asked if water-boarding or the use of dogs were acceptable interrogation techniques, Yoo said his answers might take him into classified areas. Please.

For his part, Addington, Chief of Staff and former counsel to VP Cheney, said that, while he had visited Gitmo and observed the questioning of some detainees, the sessions appeared to be just conversations, nothing unusual. And in responding about whether the use of "harsher methods" had been discussed, he said "I don't recall", the preferred response by members of this administration when they are willing to testify at all. Again, as with Yoo, it would seem that if Addington felt the president was within his rights to do "whatever was required" in extracting information from "terrorist" suspects, he could simply have said we did what we needed to do. Period!

But neither man made such a bold assertion, and that's what was so illuminating about the proceedings. Suddenly both Addington and Yoo felt constrained to temper positions that had seemed so compelling in the past with the softening agent of forgetfulness and by distancing themselves from actual events. Clearly Congress had assumed its anti-torture legislation would be respected by the executive branch, but the question soon became how exactly torture was to be defined.

Yoo had advanced the opinion that unless interrogation methods resulted in injury that caused organ failure, death or serious impairment of bodily functions they did not fit the definition of torture. Why then the tiptoeing around questions from the committee when these White House advocates had been so sure of themselves in the past? One clue might be derived from Yoo's earlier opinions about executive power that were and continue to be in dispute. The Constitution did after all grant very specific powers to three separate branches of government. As Ivan Eland put it "...more tragic and dangerous for the republic than the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan have been President Bush's Yoo-surping of power from the other two branches of government and the creation of the hyper-imperial presidency." (http://www.anti-war.com/, 4/7/08)

Congress does not take kindly either to being ignored or having its legislation perverted beyond recognition. And so when asked if anyone in the administration had gone back to Congress to ascertain what they meant by torture, the answer was, typically enough, a most unsatisfactory and not pleasantly received "not to my knowledge."

In any case, pretty much everyone gets ‘the death thing', and it doesn't conform to any rational definition of torture. As Supreme Court Justice Stewart said back in the ‘60s, about pornography, ‘I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.' So are most Americans able to identify torture when they see or hear about it; it's only the current leadership and its stooges who strive to confuse the issue.

It is astonishing that so much of the public, encouraged by a pervasive Republican propaganda machine and a compliant media, continues to agree that McCain's national security credentials are his greatest strength. Poll after poll indicates that a majority of Americans believe McCain and his party are stronger on defense than Democrats. Why this should be the case, though, is a mystery.

McCain advisor, Charlie Black, has taken some not-so-friendly-fire for saying that another terrorist attack would help his candidate in the fall. The idea that anyone would suggest such an event might favor the presumptive Republican nominee seems outrageous except for the uneasy feeling that Black could be right. Remember those opportunistic color-coded alarm posters that appeared before elections? The wonder is that so many voters fell for those tactics so trustingly for so long. Would they be inclined to do so again?

Most surprising about the current flap is that Bush and supporters like McCain keep telling us their policies and counter-terrorism efforts are the reason we haven't been attacked again in the past seven years. The almost eight-year hiatus between the Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the one in 2001 is rarely, if ever mentioned, nor is much made of the fact that the perpetrators of the first attack were tracked down, arrested and imprisoned - - a rapid response that didn't take us to war against an ill-defined, poorly understood enemy. Unfortunately, the threat of terrorism wasn't taken seriously by the Bush administration when it won the White House, despite warnings from Clinton as he left office. And the Bush policies since 9/11 have only served to exacerbate terrorist angst in the Middle East while tying us down in the sinkhole that is Iraq.

How can a government with such a dismal foreign-policy record still receive high marks from voters when it comes to national defense? One reason is that conservatives like David Brooks continue to write, as he did in his most recent column, ( NY Times, 6/24) that "...before long, the more honest among the surge opponents will concede that Bush, that supposed dolt, actually got one right." But this is only superficially so since the political reconciliation that was supposed to proceed as a result of the surge has largely failed to materialize. And not all analysts agree that the surge has been an unqualified success. "Beyond the declines in overall violence in Iraq, several crucial measures the Bush administration uses to demonstrate economic, political and security progress are either incorrect or far more mixed than the administration has acknowledged, according to ... the Government Accountability Office" (NY Times,6/24)

The obvious disconnect between the notion that Republicans are the best stewards of our security and constant apocalyptic warnings that we are in imminent danger seems to escape advocates who support those who talk the tough talk even when their walk is unsteady and misdirected. And the belief that our national defense system requires a ferocious military buildup keeps the country ever more reliant on the military-industrial complex about which Eisenhower warned so many years ago. Countries that manufacture war materiel end up either using it themselves or selling it to other countries for their war-time activities - - hardly a recipe for a peaceful resolution of world problems.

In any case, how would another attack on our soil benefit a party that insists their policies have kept us safe? Would a fearful nation turn to the very people who have created a firestorm in the Middle East, drained our treasury and stretched our military beyond endurance? Are voters really prepared to trust John McCain who so often seems out of touch in terms of geopolitical realties, so under-educated about the regions that most concern us? Do campaign commercials that focus on his military background, orchestrated with explosions in the distance, speak to the American people's trust in strong leaders or just to their innermost fears?

In attempting to provide some perspective with regard to how this whole national security issue may play out in November MSNBC's Chuck Todd suggested recently that it might all come down to whom the voters feel most comfortable with. In his analogy, Barack Obama is a high-wire act while John McCain, that solid, dependable guy, waits below holding the nation's safety net. If that turns out to be the general perception the greatest danger the country faces will be from within.

TV commentators and print journalists moderate endless discussions about every conceivable niche position, no matter how silly or ill-conceived, like the famous example of fairness run amok: ‘A majority of the scientific community believes the world is round...but opinions differ.' And, as pundits ponder ‘news' from the campaign trail, they rarely explore the subject of, say, national pride in depth, often turning instead to trivia.

Thus the dress Michelle Obama wore on The View is suddenly on point. Was it significant that her outfit was black and white, interesting that it is flying off the racks at $148? And since Michelle is known to be an accomplished business woman, the McCain camp, in an effort to dispel Cindy's Barbie Doll image, informs us she too has business credentials by dint of the fact that she is president of the brewery she inherited from her father. And Cindy can be forgiven for trying to pass off recipes from The Food Network as family favorites, because, in her words, she has always been proud of her country.

Cindy's "pride" plays out against Michelle's remark about being proud of her country for the first time in her adult life when she appeared at a campaign rally for her husband. But examining more closely this business of pride in one's country, some of the harsh realities that are part of our heritage come to mind. At a wedding I attended in Atlanta, the bride's aunt rather gleefully exclaimed that no-one was ever going to find civil rights workers, Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney. They floated them down a river somewhere she chuckled. I still feel a sense of shame that I stood silent, perhaps not wanting to be rude in her home but maybe just afraid to speak out. Not a proud moment on either side.

Back in the 1940s black men, who had served their country in uniform, came home to racial attitudes that ignored their service and returned them to underclass status. Even if African-Americans performed well they could be victimized by a white backlash of unrestrained violence. In Detroit in 1943 whites vandalized federally financed housing when blacks moved in and police did nothing to stop them. And when three black men were promoted at a Packard plant whites staged a wildcat strike and attacked blacks in the streets at random over the course of three days, a white police force often joining in.

And without being there in the ‘60s ample photographic evidence of police in the south beating black protestors, attacking them with dogs and bowling them over with the force of water from fire hoses must elicit something other than pride. Indeed at the time, those scenes began to prick the conscience of an otherwise complacent nation as did the church bombing that killed five little girls. If we are to be honest with ourselves we must acknowledge that ‘the good old days' weren't always good for everyone and that while love of country may be a constant, pride doesn't necessarily follow. Anyone who claims to have always been proud of our country just hasn't been paying attention.

Why is it then that Republicans have been allowed to berate Michelle Obama and to use her remarks in relentless partisan diatribes, as if there were never a time when a collective shame should have driven us all to respond long before it did? And why can Senator McCain say "I didn't really love America until I was deprived of her company" without extraordinary repercussions? And, while he and others point with pride to the fact that a woman almost became a presidential nominee, it goes un-remarked that Israel, India, Pakistan, England, Canada and Argentina, have all been led by women. The question really is what took us so long?

Much has been made of Barack Obama's decision to forgo public financing in the fall. ‘It's a question of keeping his word, of character', says McCain. Yet, McCain admits he is unable to control local Republican committees or 527s that act as surrogates for him. Right-wing talk show hosts take up his cause, as in one case, to insert "more" into his love-of-country remark so as to alter its meaning altogether, and white supremacist websites have become active since Barack's nomination.

If McCain is unable to control the nature of his campaign or the use of funds generated by outside groups why would anyone agree to public funding only to be swamped by extra-curricular, swift-boat-style attacks? Obama's fund-raising advantage is enormous and, although he would like to retain his good-guy image, he's not stupid. It may not be politics as usual, but it's still politics.

In this dizzying political season you don't need a scorecard; you need an instant fact-checking machine. The president and John McCain have trouble defining with any consistency what their energy policy is and what we're really doing in Iraq. Mr. Bush toured Europe in an attempt to embellish his legacy and returned home to support drilling off shore and in ANWR to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Senator McCain climbed on board with similar ‘solutions'. Both insist we are "winning" in Iraq.

In a recent energy speech in Houston, Senator McCain trotted out what he called his "reform agenda" although there wasn't much reformative or innovative in his proposals. What is so disheartening about energy-policy discussions is the terrorist-tinged rhetoric that is often so much a part of the Republican mantra. President Bush tied Saddam Hussein to 9/11 in the minds of the American people, and justifies our continued presence in Iraq by insisting it is vital to securing that country's fragile democracy and, oh yes, its oil supply - - goals said to be an integral part of his administration's war on terror. Interestingly, while the Middle East is a significant source of oil, the top two US suppliers are Canada and Mexico.

Senator McCain also made the rather odd comment in his speech that we are borrowing money to buy oil and alluded to the enormous interest payments we have incurred, as if they were the result of ordinary Americans filling up at local gas stations. In fact, of course, most of the funds borrowed from China and elsewhere are being used to finance the war in Iraq. Clearly, discussions about energy and the economy are meaningless without factoring in the cost of the wars in the Middle East.

In the politically-charged climate of the day the issue becomes not so much about consumer pain over gas prices, for example, but ways to make voters think the problem is being addressed in some meaningful way. Senator McCain continues to promote his gas-tax holiday, sometimes backing a windfall profits tax to pay for it, sometimes not. And, while he previously supported the rights of states to decide whether or not to drill near their borders, he seems to feel now that such decisions should be federally directed. Governor Crist of Florida, in an abrupt about-face, supports Senator McCain's position regarding off-shore drilling in his state.

And while this contentious domestic brickbat is tossed from White House to candidates to Congress, our policy in Iraq receives far too little attention. In general terms, record-keeping there could be described as a lost art. According to the BBC.online (5/23/08), eleven million dollars has been spent "without any record of what goods or services were provided." And this kind of lapse seems to be more the norm than the exception. It is hard to understand why Congress has been unable or unwilling to separate funding for the troops from building projects that include the American Embassy and military bases.

Most disturbing are statements by President Bush that we are not planning to keep permanent forces in Iraq even as he seeks to forge an agreement with the Maliki government that would ensure a US presence and over fifty bases there on a more or less permanent basis. As part of what is effectively a treaty in all but name, the US would protect the Maliki government and direct military operations from Iraqi soil as it saw fit. Our troops would be tasked with maintaining order among warring factions, in the end being forced to take sides in a civil war.

So far the Maliki government and the Iraqi parliament have shown little enthusiasm for a prolonged American presence, seeing it, rather perceptively it would seem, as a continuing occupation that would intrude upon their country's sovereignty. Congress, too, has expressed concern about an arrangement engineered in the last days of the current administration that would pledge our country's military commitment in Iraq well into the future.

The American people should be able to count on Congress to represent their best, not special, interests. And candidates ought to stand for more than partisan pandering. There was a time when McCain's constant reshuffling of priorities and positions would have been called flip-flopping.

The Republican and Democratic campaigns are wildly divergent in how they address tax cuts, job creation and decisions to use military force. The McCain camp paints Obama as an isolationist who would disrupt trade policies and desert Iraq while McCain advocates open-ended trade agreements, lop-sided tax cuts and an occupation that bears no resemblance to the original justification sold by this government.

In the face of its constantly shifting rationale for our presence in Iraq the current administration has never come to grips with the regional impact of a disrupted nation in the Middle East that has strengthened enemies and left Iraq in a shambles. McCain says government must do a better job of educating the American people about why it engages in conflicts like Viet Nam and Iraq and that those who object are tantamount to traitors, a philosophy he developed over time, especially during his long years as a POW when he felt the war effort was being undermined by protestors at home.

But if the people of this country simply go along with anything those in power decide to do no matter what, that is hardly the basis upon which the hopes and aspirations of a nation were framed in the early days of our founding. Patriotism isn't something to be used as a hammer to pound away at political opponents. As Senator Carl Schurz put it, when so confronted in the late 19^th century, yes "my country right or wrong" but he added "if right to be kept right; and if wrong to be set right." Just ‘going along' closes off the opportunity to set things right - - end of discussion.

One major flaw in the McCain campaign is that the ramifications of his policies are rarely examined in any meaningful way. His economic advisor submits that revenues increased because of tax cuts and explains why corporations are allowed to protect income overseas by saying that, if the corporate tax rate were lower, they'd come back home, which doesn't really clarify why offshore income is protected in the first place.

And the argument that lower taxes help create jobs hasn't been borne out in recent years unless lower-paying, benefit-less employment is seen as a positive national trend. The very rich are buying more luxury items, eating out more often, driving larger, gas-hungry cars and deciding which of their homes to occupy, while the poor and middle class struggle to put food on the table and work enough jobs to just get by, wrestling in addition with the prospect of losing their homes in the mortgage crunch. One often hears the point made that poor people don't create jobs, but the second part of that equation is that the pay scale of top executives is astonishingly generous compared to employees whose job security, health care and pensions are always in a state of flux.

Of course not all tax cuts are created equal. McCain originally contended the Bush tax cuts favored the rich over the middle class, but now his contention is that those tax cuts are just the thing to bring the economy back to health - - that once spending is restrained things will trickle down into the outstretched hands of a grateful public. No explanation of how to replace lost revenue is ever made, and the notion that suspending earmarks is a big part of the answer is ludicrous in the extreme.

Besides while there are some notably outrageous earmarks, there are others that help sustain projects in states and municipalities that would otherwise go wanting or cripple local budgets - - $368,000 for renovations at the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank; $294,000 for new Day Care/Family Service Center in Cleveland; and $2 million for a Combat Mental Health Initiative to study risk factors for deployment-related post traumatic stress disorders, just in Ohio for example. Obviously such projects add up, but are they outside the realm of reasonable expenditures to serve legitimate national needs not factored into the federal budgeting process?

Perhaps most significant in terms of the economy though is the way the two candidates would address the country's economic shortcomings. The McCain strategy is to continue on the path of tax cuts and spending restraint while Obama wants to implement a massive infrastructure overhaul and alternative-energy initiative - - both areas of great national concern with tremendous job-creation potential.

McCain has tried to suggest that Obama wants to return to the policies of the ‘50s and ‘60s, but it his tax-oriented policies that are behind the times and offer no creative solutions for today's problems or change that would implement a more productive future.

Okay Hillary is a woman, Barack is a person of color and McCain is an older white man. Stupid misogynistic jokes continue to make the rounds. Rather more unpleasant racial innuendoes surface on Cable TV channels purporting to be respectable news outlets. But McCain's people jump on anything that seems to suggest their candidate is, well, a little long in the tooth. Will truth be the hallmark of his campaign and will he be a standup guy and disavow the shameful rhetoric employed by some of his supporters?

At his recent town meeting, he misspoke when he quoted Obama in San Francisco, as disparaging people who cling to certain beliefs and "the Constitution". By now everyone who is paying the least bit of attention, knows Obama made no mention of the Constitution in San Francisco even though he took plenty of heat for what he actually did say. Unless it was simply another blunder, suggesting Obama doesn't respect the Constitution may have been just a back-door attempt to question his patriotism.

This is a tricky gambit for McCain since the Bush administration has been rather off-handed about constitutional parameters. Claims of executive privilege have far exceeded anything stated or implied in that document which does, however, explicitly state that religion is never to be a criterion for holding office. Yet the Bush presidency, particularly its Justice Department, engaged in hiring practices that favored advocates of a particular religious persuasion. And in the early post-invasion days in Iraq, neophyte hirelings with little or no experience were sent to work on various projects having first affirmed their conservative religious convictions.

There seems to be an unwritten rule though that no-one may question the McCain military-service mystique and his long tenure in the Senate. General Wesley Clark has acknowledged McCain's heroism in war and as a POW in Viet Nam but observed that he has never commanded troops in the field or formulated military policy. Clark will probably be criticized for daring to say such things, but serving in the military, no matter how heroically, and doing a stint in the White House are two forms of national service that aren't necessarily two sides of the same coin.

And what is to be made of his comment that bringing the troops home from Iraq isn't the issue; it's about U. S. casualties. As is often the case when pols say unfortunate things, McCain complains his remarks were taken out of context. But there really isn't any missing context because McCain has made the point repeatedly that keeping troops in other countries, e.g. Japan, Germany, Korea, has worked out just fine so what's the big deal if we do the same thing in Iraq? The problem: Iraq is in no way comparable to countries that had signed off in treaty negotiations and were not in any case beset with the ethnic and religious divisions and civil disorder that still roil Iraq.

Equally problematic is the enormous cost of our Iraqi occupation - - the large troop deployments and the giant embassy being built there, to say nothing of the huge Blackwater Security contingent on duty to protect contractors and visiting dignitaries. McCain miscalculated the number of combat troops downward by about ten thousand. In any case what is the post-surge strategy? When will sufficient stability allow a reasonable drawdown to begin? If thousands of troops were deployed in our inner cities, gang activity would probably be significantly reduced, but what would ultimately change the lives of the gang members if those troops did not maintain a permanent presence or resolve core problems in the community? Who's developing the afterward to this story?

McCain's gaffes may have less to with his age than his general lack of awareness, but his age and the issues involved are fair game nonetheless. It is inexcusable, however, for Fox News to shill for McCain by taking aim at Michelle Obama, calling her "Obama's baby mama", street talk most often used to describe the unwed mother of a man's child, and putting out the nonsense about a possible "terrorist fist jab" between her and Barack.

It would say a lot about McCain's integrity and sense of decency if he were to denounce Fox News for its disrespectful and racially infused comments, because if his best strategy for advancing his presidential hopes lies in stretching the truth and countenancing negative attacks against Obama he really doesn't have much of a message.

In a political environment where complexities are whittled down to sound-byte size, elections sometimes turn on currying favor with a media more intrigued by conflict than the motivating force behind it - - where fluff trumps substance and attacks on a spouse sometimes assume greater importance than the workings of government.

It is said Republicans will make an issue of Michelle Obama's comment that ‘for the first time in her adult life she was proud of her country', although as she later explained her special sense of pride was due to the fact that her husband was able to run for president in what had long been a politically closed process for people of color. Whatever one's take on her comment, the Reverend Wright rants, or others who have slipped in and out of Barack Obama's life over time, efforts to make them the focus only serve to avoid addressing matters of far greater import.

Unless a potential first lady is running an escort service, poisoning neighborhood dogs or setting forest fires, her doings are for the most part beside the point. Cindy's jet may transport her husband in greater comfort and at more reasonable expense than other forms of transportation, but it is what it is, she's a millionaire, get over it. Speeches either lady makes are newsworthy of course; more important is what Senators McCain and Obama are saying on the stump and in interviews.

Meanwhile, Congress isn't accomplishing much, fearing their actions could reverberate in November. Instead it is mired in partisan wrangles and tactical maneuvers. Senator McConnell, for example, forced the clerk to read a 500-page global-warming bill aloud, using a parliamentary device to protest stalled Bush judicial appointees - - effectively shutting down the Senate for an entire day. This was different only in degree from his announcement, when Democrats took control of the Senate, that Republicans should do everything they could to block legislation initiated by the other party even if they thought it was worthy of passage.

If government is broken, as some say, the McConnell approach has helped shatter it. Shouting "socialism", for example, whenever national health issues are raised is a scare tactic that does nothing to advance the debate. When Senator McCain says our health care is the best in the world that may be true in a general sense, but his notion that competition and tax rebates could serve to guarantee coverage for all citizens offers false alternatives. Tax rebates probably wouldn't mean much to people with low incomes, and medical-savings-accounts would be unlikely to provide adequate insurance for families should major health crises arise.

Those who could avail themselves of such options are the very people already able to afford expensive medical plans. For them, tax rebates and deductible medical savings accounts would simply mean more disposable, tax-free income. Though McCain says that anyone who wishes to do so could keep their employer-provided health benefit, how many employers would continue to offer such coverage if other plans were in effect?

At a major New York City hospital one floor offers every imaginable service and amenity to wealthy patients. It is very expensive, and while one may deplore a system where only the very rich can enjoy such comforts, as a nurse explained it to me, charges for the special accommodations enable the institution to provide care for the poor and indigent, a microcosmic arrangement rarely duplicated in the larger society where employees lose their jobs, health care and pensions by the thousands while employers haul in huge salaries and, if forced to move on, are suspended painlessly from golden parachutes.

Hope for a brighter future has energized an electorate that has come to understand that when you find yourself in a hole you should stop digging which means among other things not accepting more-of-the-same policies dressed up as change. Washington and the way it works will not magically re-invent itself without a new and progressive leadership team in charge.