It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Political Apathy is an idea whose time has come.

My political education started with Eisenhower's farewell address. It's ending with a vacancy named Obama in the White House.

There are mainly two issues: the perambulating disaster called the economy and the search for "peace" (ha ha) throughout the Middle East.

Regarding the first of these, Geithner's "new" plan for dealing with the economic meltdown is now mostly leaked out. It's essentially indistinguishable from his earlier plans; at issue is his (and Obama's) determination to maintain that the huge pile of "toxic assets," the vacuum at the center of this mess, is actually worth something, hence, there's nothing really fundamentally wrong with the system.

"Toxic assets" is an oxymoron, because if they're toxic, they're not assets, and vice-versa. Krugman explains in detail why this so-called plan is just the Bush/Paulson approach calling itself "change:"

The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.

In other words, the new plan is for the innocent to pay up and bail out the guilty parties who created all these "toxic assets." Same as the old, Bush plan.

At the same time the administration is refusing to deal with the financial crisis, it's been stiffed by the Iranians, for cause.

Iran's supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama's latest outreach on Saturday, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in U.S. policy.

(snip)

Khamenei asked how Obama could congratulate Iranians on the new year and accuse the country of supporting terrorism and seeking nuclear weapons in the same message.

Khamenei said there has been no change even in Obama's language compared to that of his predecessor. (Emphasis is mine.)

"He (Obama) insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? What is the sign of that change? Make it clear for us what has changed."

Still, Khamenei left the door open to better ties with America, saying "should you change, our behavior will change too."

As I noted here a few days ago, Obama and Hillary Clinton habitually keep referring to Iran as a "nuclear threat," even though their own security chief has testified before Congress that Iran has neither the capacity nor any plan to produce a nuclear weapon.

I fear we've been played for rubes, one more time. This guy campaigned on a promise of "change." I would very much like to see some. Maybe somebody could wake me up if there ever is any.

Somebody remind me again why the presidential election of 2008 was so damned important.