President George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

With your permission, I’d like to test out a hypothesis. My theory is that, back in the days of your wild youth, back before Jesus became your favorite philosopher, you must have been a huge Led Zeppelin fan. The lyrics of their classic heavy metal music must have spoken to your soul on such a deep level that they would continue to affect you for years to come.

Let’s face it, no one outside of your ever-shrinking circle of supporters can look at your actions of the last eight years and not think Dazed and Confused. Hurricane Katrina? It must take you back to When the Levee Breaks.  Kashmir might have planted a seed that led to your interest in the Middle East. And your policies concerning the death penalty, elective war, torture and relaxed workplace safety standards surely mean you’ve done more than anyone currently alive to send people on the Stairway to Heaven.

But, more than any other Led Zep song, the one that must have affected you the most was The Song Remains The Same. Here you are talking about the economy in 2004:

“Sure there will be costs, but the cost of doing nothing will be greater. It’s a difficult issue, otherwise it would have been done.”

Turning from the general issue of economic reform to the more specific issue of
Social Security reform, you also said this in 2004:

“We’ll start on Social Security now. We’ll start bringing together those in Congress who agree with my assessment that we need to work together. … [T]here are going to be costs. But the cost of doing nothing is … much greater than the cost of reforming the system today.”

A good turn of phrase must be one of the few areas where the theory of trickle-down actually works.  The ever-unpleasant Michelle Malkin emerged from the right-wing echo chamber in February of this year to offer this view of entitlement reform:

“The cost of doing nothing about exploding federal entitlements? A Republican-sponsored $3.1 trillion with a “T” budget and bogus claims of balance by 2012. Earmark reform and pork-barrel spending cuts are all well and good. But they’re a drop in the bucket.”

A month later, administration apologist Tony Fratto invoked the phrase again in a strident denunciation of  The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict,  Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes’ critique of the U.S. war in Iraq.

“People like Joe Stiglitz lack the courage to consider the cost of doing nothing and the cost of failure. One can’t even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9/11. It is also an investment in the future safety and security of Americans and our vital national interests. $3 trillion? What price does Joe Stiglitz put on attacks on the homeland that have already been prevented? Or doesn’t his slide rule work that way?”

The phrase we came full circle Saturday, Mr. President, when you began discussing the cost of the $700 billion financial institution bailout.

“This is a big package, because it was a big problem. I will tell our citizens and continue to remind them that the risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package, and that, over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back,”

There are two disturbing points about this bailout. One is a new national debt ceiling in excess of $11 trillion. Another is the lack of restrictions on administration efforts to deal with the crisis. As Sunday’s New York Times reported, all that is required is semiannual reports to Congress.

Because your administration would never do anything to betray that kind of trust in them.

Mr. President, the American people will be choosing your successor in less than a month and a half. On the one hand, we have a septuagenarian Sunbelt senator and his sidekick, a lipstick-wearing pit bull of a hockey mom who couldn’t give a flying puck about her lack of preparation for the vice presidency.

On the other hand, we have an intellectually curious with time spent in the streets, in academia and in the legislature at the state and federal level.

When the American people cast their ballots, they need to take their cue from a British rock band that resonates with me, one that’s different from the one you evidently like so such. So we don’t get a new boss  who’s the same as the old boss.

And we don’t get fooled again.

For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

Not content to leave the above warning where the Book of Deuteronomy does, certain Roman Catholic clergymen have taken it upon themselves to extend it, punishing supporters for the sins of their candidates.

Consider the case of Douglas Kmiec, a supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential run who was denied Communion in April by a priest who takes exception to Obama’s pro-choice views.

Mind you. Kmiec is no wild-eyed, tax-and-spend flag-burning leftie. In fact, he has impeccable Republican credentials, including time within the Reagan Justice Department. He’s even on record as opposing Roe v. Wade. Still, during a Mass for businessmen, an unnamed representative of Mother Church took it upon himself to wield the wafer as a weapon in the fight against legalized abortion.

In a column by E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Kmiec has argued that there must be some way to promote a culture of life that does not rest solely rely upon the elimination of legalized abortion.

“To think you have done a generous thing for your neighbor or that you have built up a culture of life just because you voted for a candidate who says in his brochure that he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade is far too thin an understanding of the Catholic faith,” Kmiec, is quoted as saying. Kmiec, a critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, added that Catholics should heed “the broad social teaching of the church,” including its views on war.

Exactly. An authentic pro-life position would include concern for criminals sentenced to execution and all the casualties that have occurred in the wake of the Bush War on Terror. Not just the brave men and women who have given their lives in a misguided effort to spread democracy at gunpoint, but the uncounted innocent Iraqi lives lost as well.

But let’s get back to the issue of abortion. The good old days before Roe weren’t all that good, as witnessed by Dr. Waldo L. Fielding, a retired gynecologist and obstetrician:

“The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.”

Research indicates that one reason endure the invasive abortion procedure is that they cannot afford the economic burden of another mouth to feed. So it stands to reason that removing from power the political party that transformed a budget surplus into a monstrous deficit could well save lives – more lives than the ban on late-term abortions.

Kmiec told Dionne that he was supporting Obama in the hope that the Illinois Democrat’s emphasis on personal responsibility in sexual matters might change the nature of the nation’s argument on life issues.

But all that will never be done if members of the Roman Catholic clergy refuse Communion to some people through reasoning that’s thinner than the Host itself.

How can social conservatives who yearn for an America where the Ten Commandments are posted on every stationary object across this great nation be so obtuse as to the meaning of those Commandments?

I’ve been asking myself that very question after reading the results of a study that found people with conservative ideologies are happier than their liberal counterparts. It’s not that I begrudge the conservatives their happiness. Heck, this country was founded on the right to pursue happiness.

No, I’m concerned about the reason conservatives are so happy. According to researchers Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University, conservatives are happy because they are able to rationalize social and economic inequalities.
Marital status, income or church attendance, none of it seems to have as much impact as an individual’s political leanings. Apparently, something about the conservative psyche allows adherents to gloss over injustice.

Napier and Jost reported last week that conservatives score highest in their ability to explain away these injustices. These rationalizations included classics from the Apathy Hall of Fame (I know. It hasn’t been built yet due to lack of interest) like: “It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others,” and “this country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are.”

Excuse me? Rationalize away injustice? How did that ever become part of the doctrine of social conservatism, or compassionate conservatives’ worldview? Has part of the Book of Genesis been expunged from their Holy Scripture? The part where Cain rhetorically asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The answer to that question is supposed to be yes.

Or maybe social conservatives were snoozing in the pews on that Sunday morning when the resident pastor preached on James 2:15-17.

“Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead,”

After all, an itinerant rabbi who reportedly is the President’s favorite philosopher once said, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one’s social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.

Ironically, it was the notion that everyone who was successful in life because of some innate superiority was of great concern to churchgoers who were exposed to Darwin’s Origin of the Species when it was published in the mid-19th Century. The reasoned that a “survival of the fittest” mentality might harden the hearts of the haves against the have-nots.

Did Ronald Reagan’s famous comment about the Cadillac-driving welfare queen supplant the Gospel message in the hearts of the faithful? Napier and Jost found that progressives spent more time pondering the plight of the less fortunate. An inability to justify gaps in status left progressives frustrated and disheartened, they said

“Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives,” the researchers wrote in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, “apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light.”

Concern for others. Isn’t that a core Christian value?

The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as “very happy,” while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.

If progressives are more alarmed by economic disparity than their typical conservative counterparts s, there are signs that change is coming. According to a Seattle Times article recently published in the Huffington Post, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate. The surprising results were taken from a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Other polls indicate that traditional Republican wedge issues like gay marriage have little appeal for these voters.

There’s no guarantee that these voters will all swing Obama’s way, but progressives no longer need feel that their voices are echoing in the wilderness.

When it comes to the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover probably gets a bad rap. The fact that he shares a surname with W.H. “Boss” Hoover, whose eponymous firm helped popularize the vacuum cleaner, has only further cemented his reputation as an economic scapegoat. (We had a Hoover in the White House and the economy sucked!)

But however clean Hoover’s hands may be when it came to the stock market crash of 1929, there’s no getting around the fact that he helped pave the way for the current economic downturn.

How did it all go so wrong? Some history is in order.

Before becoming the nation’s chief executive, Hoover had accrued a portfolio of progressive credentials that would have had members of today’s Republican Party frothing at the mouth. For one thing, he specifically spoke out against the free-market philosophy that helped contribute to the worst economic times the United States has ever known.

In fact, as Secretary of Commerce in the Harding and Coolidge administrations, Hoover promoted the idea of government intervention in the economy as part of the Efficiency Movement.

John McCain, meet a real maverick.

By the time Hoover entered public life, he already had demonstrated personal bravery and professional competence –- two traits which place him head and shoulders above  members of the current administration. Trapped in China during the Boxer Rebellion, Hoover once risked his life to rescue some Chinese children.

Hoover’s concern for his fellow man continued during World War I.  He headed the Committee for Relief in Belgium. His capable action there, and later, as chief of the American Food Administration made him a hero across the globe. He was so competent, in fact, that when the Mississippi River flooded in 1927, the governors of six states asked for Hoover by name.

Health units organized by Hoover succeeded in eliminating malaria, pellagra, and typhoid fever from many flood-stricken areas.

Imagine if Hoover had been in the Bush administration after Hurricane Katrina. The president might have said, “Heckuva job, Hoovie,” and meant it.

Alas, Hoover’s term as president was not to be as distinguished.  Fear factored into the election of 1928. Somehow, it always seems to when Republicans win. In this case, the Catholicism of Democrat Al Smith sent many voters to the GOP.

Then the bottom fell out of the stock market, and Hoover’s economic ideology betrayed him.

Throughout his public life, Hoover had pushed the idea that government and business should work cooperatively to solve problems. It was a strategy that had worked well in the past.

. “I suppose I could have called in the Army to help,” he said regarding the 1927 flood, “but why should I, when I only had to call upon Main Street.”

One of Hoover’s first responses to the Depression was to ask employers to keep workers on the payroll. But most firms were unable or unwilling to keep paying workers for that amount of time.

Many of the tools that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration used to combat the Depression were tried first by Hoover, albeit on a smaller scale. It seemed that Hoover couldn’t grasp the enormity of the problem confronting him.

But what role did Hoover play in the current economic mess?

It happened while he was serving as Commerce Secretary. Hoover worked with bankers and the savings and loan industry to promote a newfangled financial instrument called the long-term home mortgage.

The rest, as they say, is history. Aided and abetted by today’s conservative mantra of deregulation, the once-benign mortgage industry now stands at the center of the current financial crisis. “Liars’ loans,” subprime mortgages and dubious investment packages have spread financial woe into such diverse segments as plastic surgery, truck sales and retail sales.

But remember. It’s not a Hoover thing. It’s a Republican thing.

Several years ago, when I was practicing the craft of journalism in a small town, a co-worker who was disappointed with the community’s exceedingly shallow dating pool planned a trip to Nevada. His primary purpose was the opportunity to patronize one of that state’s legalized brothels. Several of us at the office asked him why he would be willing to spend a significant percentage of his biweekly paycheck on a sexual encounter.

“You always pay for it,” he responded with the world-weary cynical air of one who has picked up the tab on dinner and a movie one time too many.

He returned from his trip with a more relaxed pleasant disposition, leading some in the office to consider helping fund a second trip.

But “Sam” later confessed over a beer that the encounter had left him somewhat unsettled and disturbed. The woman he had selected was pleasant and accommodating. The sex itself was everything he could have hoped for.

Afterward, he noticed that the name on her footlocker was not the same as the one she had given him. And in that instant, the illusion was shattered. How do you claim a conquest when you haven’t even managed to learn the identity of the one you supposedly conquered?

The sexcapades involving former Empire State Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the prostitute known to him as Kristen have gotten me thinking about my co-worker’s encounter.

What is the appeal of prostitution? Two consenting adults take a life-affirming act of intimacy and reduce it to a simple commercial transaction. The emotional investment is exactly the same as that required when ordering a Number 3 combo meal at your favorite fast-food restaurant.

Except that people (unless they are devout vegans) don’t generally experience acute shame from visiting the Home of the Whopper.

For Spitzer, encounters with prostitutes were incredibly risky. Let us put aside his reported refusal to wear a condom, which is a singularly poor idea in a time when STDs run rampant. He also willingly endangered his professional standing, his political career and his home life, all for a relatively brief sense of gratification. It’s not like he could use the encounters as fodder for locker-room talk with his buddies. Patronizing a prostitute does not prove sexual prowess. It establishes only that the client had enough money to gain admittance.

There may be many people who believe that male courtship behavior consists of a set of behaviors which aim to culminate in sexual congress. In those cases where the behavior doesn’t yield the desired result, there is at least some learning going on, so that the man in question is a better person when he meets the next object of his affection.

Prostitution requires no such personal growth. There is never any doubt about what the outcome of the evening is going to be. In such a situation, the act of sex becomes hollow indeed. In fact, the act is so hollow that there had to be an alternative to the choice Spitzer made.

Are there people so afraid of emotional development that they’d spend a small fortune to avoid it? If that’s what happened here, Spitzer deserves pity, not scorn.

And what of Ashley Youmans aka Ashley Alexandra Dupre aka Kristen, the hooker at the heart of the scandal. From all accounts, she is the product of a privileged, albeit broken home in suburban New Jersey. Her current employment in the sex trade is the culmination of a series of bad decisions in her young life.

There’s a school of thought that suggests people in Kristen’s line of work are empowered by taking control of their sexuality. But a prostitute is dependent on customer satisfaction even more than the lowliest cashier at a big-box store. If the cashier runs afoul of a customer, there are mid- and upper-level managers to intercede for them. Sex workers run the risk of dissatisfied customers maiming or killing them.

In the case of Client Number 9, who reportedly avoided condoms, the downside might only be disease or pregnancy.

It might be instructive to check up on Kristen in 10 years’ time, after her temporary notoriety has waned. By then, the money that has accompanied her time in the spotlight will likely be gone. What will her life be like?

Never mind career. What will her personal life be like? Will her work have left her too jaded to enjoy sex an expression of intimacy? Will she ever be able to convince a lover that pillow talk is sincere?

Ashley Youmans’ job required her to be little more than an animated receptacle for seminal fluid. Except for well-rehearsed phrases designed to tickle the ear of a client, there was no reason for her to call upon the unique series of firing neurons and synapses that make us individuals. She willingly stripped herself of her personhood as surely as she stripped off her clothes.

Whatever career Ms. Youman might have had in music surely has been damaged by the scandal. It’s difficult to project the image of unattainable chanteuse when her history suggests that she can be attained by anyone with a fat wallet.

And it’s difficult to gauge the collateral damage caused by the world’s oldest profession. Practitioners are surely morally complicit in the ruin of countless relationships.

Years ago, the author John D. McDonald’s salvage consultant/beach bum described the consequences of promiscuity this way:

The scene is reputed to be acrawl with adorably amoral bunnies to whom sex is a pleasant social favor. The new culture. And they are indeed present and available, in exhausting quantity, but there is a curious tastelessness about them. A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convenience, like a guest towel.

Two lives ruined, one by a needless risk, another by heedless choices. Two lives mortgaged by subprime choices.

When it comes to the home-lending crisis, I figured that I’d heard it all: People losing their homes, discovering that their homes were not the automatic money-maker that they once were, treasured companion animals abandoned as evicted families leave.