The iPINIONS Journal

No doubt you recall that conservative economists were warning in 2009 that President Obama’s stimulus package would lead to a double-dip recession and trillion-dollar deficits in perpetuity.

Stimulus measures were aimed at boosting economic recovery by, among other things, increasing government spending on everything from infrastructure to unemployment insurance. But Republicans claimed that, by implementing them, Obama was cluelessly turning the U.S. economy into a European-style, recession-plagued socialist one.

Except that, from day one of his presidency, Republican politics has been governed by a tortured and hypocritical logic that continually defies common sense. Which is why, in this case, it never gave Republican politicians pause to be damning Obama for his so-called European-style economic policies on the one hand, while urging him to emulate the austerity European leaders were implementing on the other hand.

Austerity measures were aimed at boosting economic recovery (and, perhaps more importantly, reducing budget deficits) by, among other things, reducing government spending and cutting pensions and salaries. And Republicans claimed that only such measures would stimulate the economy, create jobs, and avert a prolonged recession … if not an economic depression.

I am on record siding with Obama when this stimulus-v-austerity debate was brought into stark relief at a gathering of world leaders at the 2009 G20 Summit in London, England:

I agree with the Obama-Brown prescription, especially since it also recognizes the need to supplement stimulus with more regulation; whereas the Sarkozy-Merkel prescription relies on austerity measures and rejects outright any need to supplement regulation with more stimulus.

(“G20 Fails to Stimulate or Regulate Global Economy,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 3, 2009)

Well, based on key macroeconomic indicators, the verdict is in.

In the United States with its emphasis on stimulus:

• Unemployment is down to 7.6 percent today, from 10 in October 2009.
• The DOW rose to an all-time high of 15,354.40 on Friday, from a low of 6,547.05 in March 2009 (less than two months into Obama’s presidency).
• The deficit has returned to the lowest level since the summer of 2008 at $669 million for fiscal year 2013. What’s more, far from the ballooning, trillion-dollar deficits in perpetuity Republicans warned about, the non-partisan CBO projects budget deficits of just half that amount. According to the March 12, 2013 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek – featuring the “Single Best Chart,” the deficit peaked as percentage of GDP at 10.4 percent in December 2009; it fell to 6.7 last year; and the CBO estimates that it will fall to 2.0 percent next year. Debt as a percentage of GDP is 73.6.
• This country has enjoyed 15 quarters of positive growth in GDP since Obama’s stimulus began to take effect in the third quarter of 2009.

By contrast, in the 17-nation Eurozone with its emphasis on austerity:

• Unemployment is up to 12.1 percent (and rising) today, from 8.2 in January 2009.
• Deficit as a percentage of GDP is only 4 percent, but debt as a percentage of GDP is 82.5.
• This zone has suffered 5 quarters of negative growth in GDP, causing leading economists to conclude that:

At some point soon, Eurozone governments will be forced by voters to reverse austerity and stimulate growth…

Based on this unfolding evidence, one cannot escape the conclusion that, to date, austerity policies not only have not achieved their objectives, but they have actually proven to be counter-productive. It is now obvious to all that the current European macroeconomic policy orthodoxy is misplaced in the new era of high debt and renewed recession.

(VOX, March 3, 22013)

In fact, no less a person than Zanny Minton Beddoes, economics editor at The Economist, echoed this damning verdict on Sunday’s edition of GPS with Fareed Zakaria on CNN. Specifically, she declared that the Eurozone’s prolonged recession is in fact an indictment of austerity.

Therefore, contrary to Republicans urging Obama to emulate European leaders’ austerity policies, the more prudent thing would have been for European leaders to emulate Obama’s stimulus policies.

But pigs will fly before Republicans acknowledge the irony that, because Obama had his way (mostly), the United States has not ended up like Europe (i.e., mired in recession with record-high unemployment). Instead, they will do or say anything to avoid having to explain how their prescription for economic recovery could have been so wrong. Perhaps this explains why they’ve been deflecting in recent weeks by trying to tar and feather Obama with all manner of faux scandals to make it seem as if he is as every bit as crooked as Richard Nixon.

But nothing indicates how wrong they are in this respect as well quite like Sunday’s CNN/ORC poll, which found that Obama’s job approval is 53 percent (i.e., up from the 51.1 that led to his re-election last November).

Mind you, this is not to say that austerity measures cannot work. After all, indications are that slashing wages and cutting government spending helped Latvia recover from the 2008 financial crisis better than any of the Eurozone countries it hopes to join next year. But surely it is self-evident why austerity might work for the economy of this peripheral country but not for that of a major power like the Eurozone or the United States, no?

I comment more on the reasons stimulus is generally better than austerity for, well, stimulating economic growth in “Rational Markets vs. Keynesian Economics,” The iPINIONS Journal, September 23, 2011:

I applaud Obama for finally proposing a Keynesian jobs bill that focuses more on government spending to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and improve other areas (like education and law enforcement) than on catering to financial institutions that do little more than inject irrational exuberance or irrational fear into the economy.

Related commentaries:
G20 fails…
Rational markets…

I pledged some time ago to stop commenting on natural disasters that seem so commonplace these days.

Naturally, I convey my condolences to the loved ones of the 24 people who died when massive tornadoes ravaged the entire suburb of Moore (just outside Oklahoma City) yesterday. I also extend my thoughts and prayers to the hundreds injured and thousands otherwise affected. The death toll includes many children who were caught at their elementary school, and it is expected to rise; not least because many are still missing….

A similar outbreak hit Oklahoma on May 3, 1999, killing 36 and injuring hundreds.  However, preliminary reports indicate that this might be the worst in U.S. history – in terms of death, injuries, and destruction.

But the real reason for publishing this commentary is to help hoist a few Republican politicians up by their own petard.

No doubt you recall the way the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, went ballistic when his fellow Republicans attempted to sacrifice displaced residents of his state at the altar of fiscal austerity in the aftermath of last year’s Hurricane Sandy – the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history.

More to the point, though, Christie joined politicians from all of the areas Sandy devastated in duly questioning how these Republicans would feel about emergency federal assistance if their respective states were hit by disaster.

Well, that day of reckoning came yesterday in Oklahoma for many Republicans – but most notably for notorious fiscal hawks Senators Jim Inhofe (left) and Tom Coburn.

As frantic rescue missions continued Monday in Oklahoma following the catastrophic tornadoes that ripped through the state, it appeared increasingly likely that residents who lost homes and businesses would turn to the federal government for emergency disaster aid…

Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, both Republicans, are fiscal hawks who have repeatedly voted against funding disaster aid for other parts of the country…

In a December press release, Coburn complained that the Sandy Relief bill contained ‘wasteful spending,’ and identified a series of items he objected to, including ‘$12.9 billion for future disaster mitigation activities and studies.’

(Huffington Post, May 20, 2013)

Given this, you might think these self-righteous guardians of the nation’s purse would be worried about having to explain to victims in their state why any federal funds to help them recover and rebuild would be wasteful government spending. And, accordingly, that they will not be lobbying for any emergency federal assistance.

Except that they are no different from the self-righteous (and self-appointed) guardians of the unborn who repeatedly vote against abortion rights until a member of their family gets knocked up with an unwanted pregnancy. Therefore, I fully expect these senators to find an exception to their rule that enables them to lobby for federal funds for their residents/voters just as vigorously as Christie lobbied for his.

I know this because – what Christie and others apparently did not know is that – both Inhofe and Coburn are on record repeatedly lobbying for federal disaster relief funds for their own state of Oklahoma, which ranks third in the nation after Texas and California in terms of disaster declarations.

Friggin’ hypocrites!

On a more consistent and truly principled note, President Obama called the Republican governor of Oklahoma, Mary Fallin, to offer whatever federal emergency management assistance (FEMA) her state needs. Truth be told, I’m sure he’s relieved to have the media turning their obsessive, herd-like, tunnel-vision coverage on this movie-like twister instead of searching for scandal in every nook and cranny of his administration.

On the other hand, the beleaguered NBC TODAY Show can’t catch a break. It was supposed to be deflecting from its personnel and ratings woes by taking the show on the road this week to such exotic (and ratings-boosting) places as Hawaii. Instead, Matt Lauer, Al Roker, and Co. are stuck in Oklahoma foraging amidst tornado rubble, along with reporters from every other news organization in the country, only to report the same survival stories everybody else is reporting … ad nauseam.

NOTE: The plains of Oklahoma and Kansas, between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains, is called “Tornado Alley” for good reason. Perhaps, instead of continually rebuilding residential communities there, planning officials should reserve these plains for farming….

Donate to the Red Cross: here

The point is that FOX News, which operates as the media arm of the Republican Party, has been doing its damnedest to be to Benghazi what the Washington Post was to Watergate…

Comparisons between Benghazi and Watergate are fundamentally flawed; and here’s why: Nixon actively participated in both the conspiracy to burgle the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the subsequent cover up when the shit hit the fan. By contrast, Obama clearly had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack. What’s more, even the most rabid Republican can only impute guilt to him in the subsequent cover up, which congressional testimony indicates was directed not out of the White House (as was the case with Watergate), but out of the Department of State…

I am convinced the Administration engaged in a cover up of its security failures, which included whitewashing the infamous CIA talking points by deleting all references to terrorists to make them comport with Obama’s re-election narrative.

(“Benghazi: Obama’s Watergate? Hardly,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 9, 2013)

On second thought, perhaps FOX News can be forgiven its dogged determination to bring down President Obama the way the Washington Post brought down President Nixon. And there is no shortage of not just reporters but two-bit commentators vying to be the next Woodward or Bernstein.

After all, whatever the shortcomings in claims about Obama covering up Benghazi the way Nixon covered up Watergate, late-breaking reports about the IRS targeting his enemies are giving credence to this foreboding Nixon-Obama analogy.

The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was ‘inappropriate’ targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their exemption applications, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

(Associated Press, May 10, 2013)

The Obama Administration is now in the wholly untenable position of having to disavow the activities of the IRS with the same kind of CYA zeal with which it has been disavowing the activities of the Department of State. I fear, however, that such disavowals are beginning to sound as contrived to fair-minded supporters like me as they have always sounded to congenital critics like Tea Parties.

More to the point, like al-Qaeda who only needed one good hit to destroy the American way of life forever, Republicans (and their hit men at FOX News) only need one good scandal to destroy Obama’s presidency. Separately, Benghazi and the IRS do not qualify; but together they make for a pretty good scandal.

All the same, let me hasten to clarify that far worse than the IRS targeting conservative political groups is the scandal of so many of these groups fronting as charitable/welfare organizations to game the tax system.

This gaming can be directly attributed to the decision the Supreme Court handed down in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), which effectively granted corporations and individuals the right to funnel unlimited cash into political campaigns. In fact, the IRS has been deluged in recent years with applications for tax-exempt status by groups pledging “to promote social welfare” under IRC Sections 501(c)(3)(4).

Except that under c(3):

Organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.

And under c(4)

The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.

Which means that Tea Party and affiliated groups were/are clearly in violation of not just the letter but even the spirit of this law. After all, they have been open and notorious in their political campaigning on behalf of conservative/Republican candidates ever since Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Think of all of those annoying campaign ads they ran — not advocating any cause so much as bashing Obama and other liberal candidates.

No group has been more flagrant in this respect than American Crossroads — co-founded by the former top advisor to former President George W. Bush, Karl Rove. American Crossroads raised hundreds of millions of dollars during the 2012 presidential campaign and used all of it in a brazen, but futile, attempt to help Romney defeat Obama. Yet it operated and benefited as a tax-exempt organization.

Mind you, the IRS would be the first to point out that liberal political groups were/are guilty of the similar violations. Most notable on their side is Priorities USA — co-founded by former top advisor to Obama, Bill Burton. More to the point, though, the IRS would also be keen to point out that the only reason conservative groups appear to have been targeted is that their patently fraudulent applications outnumbered those of liberal groups 100 to 1.  Which, of course, reflected the pervasive and dogged zeal among conservatives to make Obama a one-term president.

All of this makes the carping by conservative groups as brazenly disingenuous as it is defiantly hypocritical. Not least because practically all of them participated in, or intervened in, political campaigns on behalf of conservative candidates (or in opposition to liberal ones as was more often the case). More important, not a single one of them was actually denied the tax-exempt status they sought. All the IRS did was make them jump through endless hoops by demanding answers to all kinds of intrusive questions aimed at getting them to put in writing the violations everyone knew they were committing in practice.

This is why the real scandal here is not the IRS targeting conservative groups. The real scandal is the IRS failing to prosecute them. Not to mention the hypocrisy inherent in conservatives raising holy hell in this case but voicing nary a word of protest when the IRS was targeting the NCAAP and Black churches in similar fashion during the presidency of Republican George W. Bush.

Nonetheless, I concluded in my May 9 commentary cited above that the Administration had in fact engaged in a cover up over Benghazi. Which is why, given this new IRS angle, it behooves President Obama himself to give a Nixon-like Checkers speech, and pray it absolves him from having to give a Nixon-like resignation speech.

On the other hand, he could wag this Benghazi-IRS dog by bombing the hell out of Syria, um, for crossing his red line on chemical weapons, of course.

* This commentary was originally published on Sunday, May 12, at 8:54 pm

Related commentaries:
Benghazi: Obama’s Watergate…

Dear Readers

I originally published this tribute on May 6 in the immediate aftermath of Tim’s death. I am reprising it today in light of his funeral, which will be held tomorrow in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands.

I appreciate your understanding.

ALH

 ____________________

It is axiomatic that parents should not have to bury their children. But too often tragedy upsets the natural order of things.

This is why my family often marveled at how truly blessed we were that our parents never suffered the unspeakable sorrow of having any of their children die before them. After all, there being 17 of us, the chance of this tragedy befalling them was far greater than it was for other parents in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) – who had an average of only 1.96 children.

What are we to make, then, of the fate that saw this tragedy pass over my parents only to befall one of us – now that we are parents too?

It happened early on Friday to my sister Esther. That’s when doctors at the Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital pronounced her son Tim dead after 13 hours of surgery. He had been airlifted from his home in the TCI a week earlier after being struck out of the blue with something called an aortic dissection. He was only 35.

We are a very religious family; therefore, I could say that we were prepared for this tragic outcome because that proverbial canard, “God works in mysterious ways,” is supposed to explain everything that makes no friggin’ sense.

But the truth is, we were prepared because, despite her understandable worries, Tim’s sister Tammy, a medical doctor herself, gave us a clinical explanation of the daunting challenges, as well as a professional assessment of the grave odds, he faced.

Still, there’s no explaining the cruel juxtaposition of our family gathering just weeks ago to celebrate my niece’s wedding, with the gathering now being planned for my nephew’s funeral.  And it isn’t just that his death was so sudden. It’s that a lot of the banter at that wedding was about the great example Tim was setting as the first born of the next generation of our family.

To get just a sense of why this was so, consider that he was happily married to his lovely and devoted wife Tamarra; he had a beautiful and healthy daughter; his business was thriving; and his dream house was in the final phase of completion. Not to mention having in Tammy, Ethan, and Tivaar younger siblings who loved him as a brother as much as they cherished him as a friend.

In fact, by all accounts, Tim seemed almost as happy as the bride at that family wedding two weeks ago. He clearly had so much to live for.

So how can we not wonder … why?  Notwithstanding that religion would have us believe that ours is not to reason why; ours is just to live and (let) die.

Apropos of which, though spiritual, I am easily the least religious person in my family. Accordingly, that I’m finding more solace in the words of metaphysical poets than in those of the Almighty God will surprise none of them.

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee…
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

(John Donne)

And so Tim is having his short sleep, before he wakes eternally….

I can personally attest to the, well, metaphysical bond that exists between a mother and her son. And that bond must be doubly so when that mother is forced to be father as well – as Esther was with Tim practically from the day he was born.

So just imagine her grief – especially given my tease above about the impressive man (husband and father) he grew up to be. He was a monumental testament to Esther’s accomplishments as caregiver and provider for her children: what mother would not be simply inconsolable at such a loss…?

Yet, it speaks volumes about her character that Esther is doing more in this hour of bereavement to console us than we are to console her. I can only hope that, in her moments of solitude, she finds Biblical words that comfort and strengthen her as much as poetic words comfort and strengthen me.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea…

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

(Lord Tennyson)

Farewell, Tim.

On Tuesday the New York Times published an op-ed by actress Angelina Jolie on her decision to have a double mastectomy. Almost immediately she became the subject of media deification the likes of which we have not seen, well, since Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president of the United States in 2008.

But let me hasten to clarify: I fully understand why she’s being hailed as a hero – especially to women with that dreaded BRCA (1 or 2) gene that makes them so susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer. It’s just that you’d never know from this coverage that tens of thousands of women, including lesser-known celebrities, have talked openly about having a double mastectomy.

However, in our celebrity-obsessed culture, having an A-lister like Jolie do so somehow makes it okay, perhaps even fashionable. This obsession clearly explains why the media made such a big deal about NBA player Jason Collins coming out as gay.

But surely it takes courage for any woman to deal with breast and ovarian cancer: whether prophylactically – as Jolie did/is doing, or by trying desperately to treat them – as far too many women are fated to do each year. The point is that all women dealing with this medical crisis should be supported, unconditionally.

What I don’t understand, however, is the oxymoronic notion that Jolie is de-sexualizing female breasts by making public her personal medical choice. Most notable in this respect is an article by Professor Alexandra Bradner in yesterday’s edition of Salon, titled “Angelina Jolie’s most thrilling decision: Robbing her breasts of their cultural power.”

Bradner’s subtitle says it all:

Male film critics will have less to ogle, but perhaps now audiences will equate her physicality with strength.

The problem with her thesis of course is that, thanks to the prevalence of elective breast implants among actresses, male film critics and moviegoers alike have had much more to ogle for years now. Perhaps Bradner is unaware that Jolie did not opt to remain au naturel (i.e., flat chested). Now that would have been heroic, and truly worthy of media deification. Instead, she got a boob job … too.

Which begs the questions: Why hail Jolie as the icon of breast cancer when she has elected to look like every other actress in Hollywood who makes a living by showing off the most titillating fake breasts money can buy?  And, apropos of all this praise, am I the only one who recalls how she was universally ridiculed just last year for posing on the red carpet at the Academy Awards as if she were striking a standing, semi-clothed pose for Penthouse magazine…?  Hell, far from “robbing her breasts of their cultural power,” she’s maintaining her (self-objectifying) sex-symbol status by any means necessary.

For the record, this surgery for the sake of vanity is hardly limited to actresses:

For reasons we don’t fully understand, rates of CPM [aka double mastectomies] are on the rise. Between 1998 and 2003, rates of CPM in the United States more than doubled from 1.8 to 4.5 percent. And, among women having a mastectomy instead of lumpectomy, the rate of CPM increased from 4.2 to 11.0 percent. Women choosing CPM tend to be younger, Caucasian and have a higher educational level.

(“Understanding Breast Cancer,” Susan G. Komen Foundation)

Not to mention that, for some, a woman getting breast implants after having a double mastectomy is rather like a drunk taking up smoking after giving up alcohol.  Just ask Sharon Osborne who, like Jolie, elected to have a double mastectomy – not because she was diagnosed with cancer, but because she had that dreaded gene:

‘I wasn’t diagnosed with cancer, but I had the gene and one of my breasts was in a really bad state because of the implant, she said, adding as a word of advice, ‘never have [implants] by the way’

(People, November 5, 2012)

Notwithstanding Jolie’s lead, I’ve read enough to know that a double mastectomy is not the best option for every woman who is diagnosed with this gene. Moreover, not every woman who has a double mastectomy gets a boob job. I urge you to discuss your options with your doctor.

Recall that it was not the nature of the murders, or even who was murdered, that kept us so riveted on coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial. Rather, it was the fact that O.J. was such a bona-fide celebrity … period.

Well, the level of celebrity it took O.J. decades to earn was conferred upon Casey in an instant, making it seem as though public interest in her legal fate is just as warranted. Frankly, this case perpetuates the perception that only the murders of cute little white girls (like Caylee, JonBenét Ramsey, and Madeleine McCann) are worthy of media coverage.

(“Casey Anthony Murder Case,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 10, 2011)

I cited the above on Friday to distinguish the gladiatorial and prurient lust that had so many people riveted on the Jodi Arias trial from the racial and cultural interest that had so many riveted on the O.J. Simpson trial(s). How coincidental, then, that O.J. was making news again on Monday with his Hail-Mary pleading for a new trial.

By way of background, here, from “Justice Delayed, but Not Denied for O.J. Simpson,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 4, 2008, is how he finally got (a little of) his comeuppance:

When he was arraigned [on armed burglary and kidnapping charges], one would’ve been hard-pressed to find a single legal pundit who thought O.J. would be convicted. Instead, they all insisted that – because O.J. was allegedly only stealing his own sports memorabilia back and his victims were disreputable con men – no jury would convict him.

But none of them bothered to advise that taking the law into one’s own hands is never a good idea, or that, just as it is illegal to rape a prostitute, it is equally so to rob a con man.

By contrast, here is what I wrote back then, in “O.J.’s Surreal Deal Revealed: 1 Burglary for 2 Murders,” The iPINIONS Journal, September 17, 2007:

Wouldn’t it be ironic if O.J. were now convicted for burglary after getting away with double murder (committed June ’94, acquitted October ’95)? …

I predict he’ll be convicted and sentenced to at least 25 years in prison; notwithstanding his patently specious (no-intent) defense that he cannot be convicted of stealing his ‘own shit.’

This is just one more way in which his civil conviction for those murders is coming home to roost. Recall that he was ordered to turn over his sports memorabilia to help settle the $33 million judgment.

Pay no attention to his desperate attempt to feign a confident smile in this most recent mugshot. Because, if you look into his eyes, you could see it dawning on him that he’s about to pay for being not only a double murderer, but also a common thief!

In fact, O.J. got 33 years (presumably, in part, as payback for the $33 million civil judgment he has proudly refused to pay). It has been widely reported that he has been obsessed – from day one in prison – with proving that he was wrongly convicted. And so, after trying in vain to get his guilty verdict overturned on appeal, he’s now in court claiming that he deserves a new trial because his lawyer not only screwed up, but screwed him.

Specifically, he’s claiming on the one hand that his high-priced lawyer was incompetent; and on the other hand that this same lawyer deceived him by not telling him about a prosecution plea offer of just two years, which, in hindsight of course, seems more like a sweetheart deal than a plea bargain.

I have no doubt that the judge will summarily dismiss the former as a patently frivolous claim. But if O.J. could establish that his lawyer did not tell him about the plea deal, by compelling that lawyer to admit this on the stand, he would have a very good chance of not only getting a new trial, but actually getting out of prison based on the four years already served.

The problem is that his lawyer would be committing professional suicide if he makes such an admission; therefore, O.J. should prepare himself to spend many more years behind bars.

He is eligible for parole in five years. And, based on reports that he has been a model prisoner (e.g., using his celebrity to arbitrate disputes between gangs), he will likely be paroled on his first try.

Beyond this, the only thing noteworthy about O.J.’s reappearance this week is the way he looked when he made his first, highly anticipated entrance in court on Monday. For it became immediately apparent that he has defied the notion that prison food will turn even a glutton into a dieter.

More to the point, it must have been humiliating enough that the shackles on his arms and feet forced him to shuffle rather than strut – as was his style. But that humiliation could only have been compounded by the 50 pounds he piled on in prison, which made his shuffle look more like a waddle. It would be one thing if it were all muscle – as one might’ve expected, but it’s clearly all fat.

Despite his pathetic appearance, however, O.J. still managed to exude the arrogance of an egocentric and unrepentant murderer … and thief. But, notwithstanding the real possibility of parole, I believe he should rot in jail: not for the 2008 theft – for which he is seeking a new trial, but for the 1994 murders – for which he got off scot-free.

Related commentaries:
Casey Anthony…
Justice delayed, but not denied, for O.J. Simpson
O.J. Simpson gets 16 to life…
Jodi Arias…

On second thought, perhaps FOX News can be forgiven its dogged determination to bring down President Obama the way the Washington Post brought down President Nixon. And there is no shortage of not just reporters but two-bit commentators vying to be the next Woodward or Bernstein.

After all, whatever the shortcomings in claims about Obama covering up Benghazi the way Nixon covered up Watergate, late-breaking reports about the IRS targeting his enemies are giving credence to this foreboding Nixon-Obama analogy.

(“Benghazi Cover Up? IRS Targeting His Enemies? Obama Looking More Like Nixon,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 11, 2013)

Nixonian? Well, according to those condemning Obama for his administration’s latest alleged transgression, he’s much worse:

The Obama Administration woke up on Tuesday to another morning of scorching criticism about the [Department of Justice’s (DOJ)] decision to secretly obtain months of Associated Press phone records.

The DOJ tracked the incoming and outgoing calls on more than 20 AP phone lines, as well as the home, office and cell phone lines for six individual journalists involved in writing a national security-related story about Yemen that the Obama Administration did not want them to write.

(Huffington Post, May 14, 2013)

The Obama Administration insists that it had a compelling government interest in obtaining the records secretly to avoid alerting the targeted journalists about its probe into untenable and, significantly, illegal leaks of classified information.

What’s more, the head of the DOJ, Attorney General Eric Holder, is on record boasting of this administration’s policy of going after leakers like no other in U.S. history, having prosecuted twice as many leakers as all previous administrations combined. It’s worth noting, however, that these unprecedented prosecutions are due in no small part to conservative journalists (mostly at FOX News) accusing Obama of dereliction of duty for failing to plug leaks on things like the heroics involved in the killing of Osama bin Laden. Primarily, of course, because they resented the fact that it was he and not his predecessor, George W. Bush, who got bin Laden.

Remarkably, though, even liberal journalists — who conservatives accuse of having a “slobbering love affair” with Obama — are condemning him for this policy. But I applaud him; not least because those criticizing the loudest are the very ones who have continually decried the inability of anyone in government to keep a secret.

And let’s be clear, the DOJ was not listening in on journalists’ conversations (i.e., tapping their phones). The intrusion everyone is up in arms about was merely getting records to determine which government officials may have spoken to journalists during a specific period of time.

Frankly, journalists expressing constitutional indignation at being violated in this context is rather like “Johns” expressing moral indignation at getting caught up in a sting on a prostitution ring. Perhaps they think the freedom of the press provided for in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is as absolute as the NRA/gun peddlers think the right to bear arms provided for in the Second is. Except that journalists — who actually seem more interested these days in competing with twitterers and bloggers for sensational scoops than in responsible  journalism — should know better.

Freedom of the press does not grant the press unfettered access to government information; and the public’s right to know does not grant the public the right to know everything the government does. And any comparison to the totalitarian practices of the Chinese or Iranian government smacks of argumentum ad absurdum. (Hell, to listen to some of these prima donnas in the press, you’d think the CIA stands for the Chinese Intelligence Agency.)

In fact, this tension or conflict between the government and the press is inherent in a democracy. Which is why the best any sensible or fair-minded critic can do is quibble not about the propriety of this spying, but about its scope:

It is not unprecedented for the [DOJ] to secretly get the numbers of reporters. What’s remarkable is the sweeping nature of this, the dragnet approach … and that’s why you have some press watchdog groups tonight, and freedom of the press groups saying this is positively Nixonian. They have not seen a precedent for this in decades.

(NBC reporter Michael Isikoff, Rachel Maddow Show, May 13, 2013)

Meanwhile, it might be helpful to know that the targets of this sting were not the journalists, but the government officials who broke the law by leaking classified information (i.e., the nation’s secrets) to them. Never mind that, if it were up to me, I would prosecute not only the government leakers, but the AP journalists as well. After all, they are the ones responsible for blithely publishing classified information without regard for how it might compromise national security or endanger the lives of American agents. And good luck finding out if the publication of a leaked story leads directly to deaths in this context; because the press itself would have a vested interest in covering this up.

Again, it seems lost on Isikoff and other critics that the only reason the scope seems so unprecedented is that this administration is the first to make plugging leaks a priority. Which makes criticizing the DOJ for finally going after leakers rather like criticizing the IRS for finally going after offshore tax cheats.

Related commentaries:
Benghazi cover up…

My heart aches every time there’s a natural disaster or man-made tragedy in some poor country. Not least because it invariably results in the deaths of many more (relatively hapless, helpless and hopeless) people than would be the case in some rich country. Think, for example, of the tsunami in Indonesia, the Bhopal gas leak in India, the earthquake in Haiti, or the train derailment in Congo….

I used to feel moved to comment on such disasters and tragedies – until I realized that commenting on them has no more redeeming value than commenting on roadside bombs in Iraq. Even more discouraging, I noticed that most Westerners are as indifferent to them as they are to perennial hunger and strife in Africa.

It is with this emotional-intellectual conflict that I watched and read news reports two weeks ago on the collapse of a factory in the garment district of Bangladesh, which is being called the deadliest industrial accident since Bhopal in 1984.

As of today, the death toll is 1,127. Miraculously, a 19-year-old girl was rescued alive from the rubble on Friday, 17 days after the collapse. But this miracle does little to diminish the tragedy of so many much younger girls who were crushed to death.

In any event, it’s a perverse affirmation of my decision to stop commenting on such tragedies that this factory collapse was preceded in November by a fire in this same district that killed 112, and followed just days ago by another fire that killed eight.

Nonetheless, I feel compelled to register my disgust at the Western companies now threatening to stop doing business in Bangladesh – purportedly because they no longer want to be associated with the substandard building practices that caused the collapse.

The Walt Disney Company, considered the world’s largest licenser with sales of nearly $40 billion, in March ordered an end to the production of branded merchandise in Bangladesh.

(New York Times, May 1, 2013)

Never mind that the PR statements some of them issued in the aftermath of this tragedy betrayed far greater concern about the impact it’s having on their brand than the casualties it caused.

Canada’s Weston family are moving to compensate victims of a deadly building collapse in Bangladesh as reactions to the tragedy goad companies to take greater responsibility for far-flung global supply chains…The image of a label in the rubble of a collapsed factory will spread instantly around the globe…

‘Now we’re waiting for the U.S. brands and all the other European brands to follow suit,’ [said Liana Foxvog, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based International Labor Rights Forum].

(The Globe and Mail, April 30, 2013)

For some reason, though, Benetton is being portrayed as the bad guy in this tragedy. Notwithstanding that its CEO Biagio Chiarolanza has reacted in the constructive manner all other CEOs should:

It’s not the solution to go outside from Bangladesh or to think in the future we can leave Bangladesh. I spent some period of my life in this part of the world, and I believe — I really believe — Benetton and other international brands can help these countries improve their condition. But we need a safe and happy working environment and we need to have better conditions.

(Huffington Post, May 9, 2013)

Indeed, despite the exploitation, it behooves us to appreciate that people in poor countries like Bangladesh would be much worse off without the menial wages these companies provide. Not to mention that we have become so dependent on the cheap products cheap labor produces that expecting Westerners to break this vicious and inhumane cycle of co-dependency is even more unrealistic than expecting China to break its dependency on foreign oil.

This is not to say that Western companies should not be morally and legally compelled to improve working conditions and increase wages. I fear, however, that the promises Benetton and others are making in the aftermath of this tragedy might prove just as hollow as those other companies made in the aftermath of previous tragedies.

It’s arguable, for example, that this factory collapse might not have happened if the companies implicated had followed the precedent Apple set in China after its brand became tainted by reports about using cheap labor and slave-like working conditions to produce its popular line of “i” products.

Apple and its China-based supplier Foxconn have agreed to limit worker overtime and significantly improve health and safety conditions at the plants that produce, among other products, the iPhone and iPad. The move comes after an investigation by the Fair Labor Association found Foxconn factories violate numerous Chinese work rules.

(NPR, March 30, 2012)

Meanwhile, such was the moral outage this collapse incited that no less a person than Pope Francis felt moved to condemn the conditions those factory workers were subjected to as tantamount to “slave labor.” He did so during a Vatican mass on May 1. But nowhere was this outrage more visceral and indignant than in Bangladesh. So much so that, despite the risk of sending Western companies shopping for slave labor elsewhere in the developing world:

Bangladesh’s government agreed Monday to allow garment workers to unionize without permission from factory owners. The government also announced plans to raise the meager minimum wage for garment workers, currently $38 a month, which is among the lowest pay in the world for garment workers.

(NBC News, May 13, 2013)

In addition, the government has closed down over 100 factories indefinitely for inspections and repairs. And, to be fair, international labor groups finally prevailed upon major retailers like H&M and Zara today to sign a legally binding agreement to help finance building safety in all factories they use in Bangladesh….

Perhaps this is why some industry experts – including Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion - are countering my cynicism by insisting that this tragedy is “really a turning point.” Because. they say, Western consumers are going to demand more ethical treatment of the workers who produce their cheap products.  I say, when pigs fly!

In truth, I’d consider it a triumph of our shared humanity if, whenever you buy self-indulgent products stamped “Made in China” or “Made in Bangladesh,” you take a moment to reflect on the exploitation of our fellow human beings that made it possible for you to buy them at rock-bottom prices.

Disaffected and disillusioned voters were throwing out nine European leaders who prescribed austerity measures as the bitter pill to cure their ailing economies and manage their  debt crisis. Nowhere was this demonstrated in more foreboding fashion for Sarkozy than in Greece with the unceremonious fall of Prime Minister George Papandreou last November.

After all, Sarkozy was not just Europe’s poster boy for the cocktail of austerity measures (most notably cutting public benefits and government services) that have become so universally unpopular, he and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany effectively concocted them.

On the other hand, Hollande predicated his candidacy on a completely different panacea, focusing more on increasing government spending and raising taxes (on the filthy rich) to stimulate economic growth than on cutting services (to the chronically poor) to lower government debt. He even pledged to renegotiate the Sarkozy-Merkel debt-reduction “fiscal pact,” mocking it by offering a government-spending “growth pact” instead.

(“Hollande Defeats Sarkozy for President of France,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 7, 2012)

Related commentaries:
Hollande defeats Sarko…

You probably know by now that Jodi Arias was convicted yesterday of the first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander. Prosecutors presented gory and salacious evidence, which proved beyond all reasonable doubt that in 2008 this “black widow” had sex with him, and then stabbed him 27 times — all before slitting his throat, and then shooting him in the face in a jealous rage.

Her trial lasted four months; and reports are that it garnered daytime ratings for the cable network HLN that would make the program director for any network’s primetime line-up blush with envy. Never mind that only porn and snuff videos can match the titillation that kept so many viewers riveted on this trial.

I, however, could not have been less interested in watching, let alone commenting on it. But I fully appreciate why so many of you have asked: Why?

For starters, I prefer my titillation to be completely free of any reference to murder. Then there’s this:

Recall that it was not the nature of the murders, or even who was murdered, that kept us so riveted on coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial. Rather, it was the fact that O.J. was such a bona-fide celebrity … period.

Well, the level of celebrity it took O.J. decades to earn was conferred upon Casey in an instant, making it seem as though public interest in her legal fate is just as warranted. Frankly, this case perpetuates the perception that only the murders of cute little white girls (like Caylee, JonBenét Ramsey, and Madeleine McCann) are worthy of media coverage.

(“Casey Anthony murder case,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 10, 2011)

And bear in mind that O.J. wasn’t just some stud who played goofy roles in Naked Gun movies. He was a man in whom most Black Americans vested a considerable amount of racial pride – stemming from his days as a superstar running back for USC and the Buffalo Bills, and continuing through the unprecedented crossover appeal he enjoyed as a sportscaster and movie star.

I submit it was this racial pride that misled his predominantly Black jury to acquit him of murder, despite prosecutors presenting clear and convincing evidence, which proved beyond all reasonable doubt that in 1994 this narcissistic SOB stalked his ex-wife and her male friend, and then slit their throats in a jealous rage.

Alas, Jodi has now established the precedent that, if a woman is attractive enough (notwithstanding the schoolmarm look Jodi donned for trial), if the details of her alleged murder are titillating enough, and of course if she’s White … enough, she too can attract this kind of media interest in her own right.

And no woman has ever seemed more stimulated by her perverse celebrity than Jodi, which must have made the unprecedented 18 days she spent on the witness stand tantamount to the longest session of tantric sex ever.

What’s more, I suspect this is why she reacted to her guilty verdict – not by flinching in fear or wallowing in self-pity, but by rushing to the nearest TV camera to continue … performing:

I would much rather die sooner rather than later… I believe death is the ultimate freedom.

(Associated Press, May 8, 2013)

Yeah, right!  Except here’s what you need to know:

There are already three women on death row in Arizona, where Jodi was tried. But this state has not executed a female death-row inmate in over 80 years (perhaps eternally spooked by the fact that it accidentally decapitated the last one when she was hanged). By chauvinistic and instructive contrast, it executed six men just last year alone.

So, trust me, Jodi knows full well that, even if she gets the death penalty, she would most likely live out the rest of her natural life on death row, during which time she could become even more celebrated as a martyr for the innocence project she apparently thinks was betrayed by her guilty verdict. I don’t doubt for a moment that she really is this psychopathic … and cunning.

More to the point, cable networks would surely be queuing up to broadcast the musings of this condemned woman as the ultimate reality-TV star.

Which is why the most suitable punishment for her would be life in prison: without the possibility of parole and with no direct access to media of any kind. Especially given that the first and last woman Arizona executed, namely Eva Duggan in 1930, spent most of her time on death row giving paid interviews.

For the record, though, let me be clear: If a bona-fide celebrity like Gwyneth Paltrow were accused of murdering her husband, I would be interested in her trial. Whereas, if another ordinary girl like Jodi were, I still wouldn’t be.

Related commentaries:
Casey Anthony…

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Thursday, at 1:17 pm

No doubt you recall widespread media reports on that ragtag bunch of terrorists who attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11 last year, killing four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

I tune in to FOX News from time to time for comic relief and reports on the X-files in American politics, in which President Obama invariably figures as some undocumented alien trying to do everything from taking away people’s constitutional right to bear arms to turning America into a European-style socialist, welfare state. But if you never tune in, you probably have no clue that, almost from the day after this attack, Republicans were accusing the Obama Administration of, among other things:

• ignoring repeated requests to beef up security at this consulate;
• failing to deploy military assets to defend it when it came under attack;
• covering up these security failures by spinning this “Overseas Contingency Operation” as a spontaneous protest triggered by some anti-Islam YouTube video; and
• refusing to call it the terrorist attack it was simply because that would’ve punctured Obama’s re-election campaign boast about decimating al-Qaeda.

The point is that FOX News, which operates as the media arm of the Republican Party, has been doing its damnedest to be to Benghazi what the Washington Post was to Watergate. All the while, Obama haters – who watch FOX News the way born-again Christians read the Bible – have been seething with political indignation at other mainstream and cable networks for refusing to report on it. To appreciate why, imagine the national outrage if FOX News were reporting 24/7 on the Boston bombings while other networks were blithely ignoring it….

Never mind that this indignation is undermined by an insidious form of racism (which these haters no doubt think is a cleaver form of reverse psychology) that has FOX News continually accusing the other networks of not reporting on Obama’s alleged failures just because he’s Black. This stems naturally from their ideological conviction that the liberal media not only have a vested interest in covering up for the liberal Obama, but also have a mortal fear of being called racists if they report anything negative about him.

Mind you, I might be guilty of helping the “lame-stream” liberal media fuel their partisan indignation. For here is how I heaped political scorn on attempts by Republicans/FOX News to make Obama the Democrats’ Nixon:

To listen to all of the carnival barking by Republicans and their Amen chorus in the media, you’d think the Obama administration actually conspired with al-Qaeda terrorists to attack the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on 9/11.

Whereas the only factual basis for all of their barking and calls for Watergate-style hearings is that, for national security reasons, the Obama administration used ‘CIA talking points’ to characterize this attack.

(“Benghazi-gate? No, McCain Fried Rice,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 19, 2012)

For the record, comparisons between Benghazi and Watergate are fundamentally flawed; and here’s why: Nixon actively participated in both the conspiracy to burgle the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the subsequent cover up when the shit hit the fan. By contrast, Obama clearly had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack. What’s more, even the most rabid Republican can only impute guilt to him in the subsequent cover up, which congressional testimony indicates was directed not out of the White House (as was the case with Watergate), but out of the Department of State.

In any event, demonstrating that, unlike far too many progressive commentators, I am not some Kool-Aid drinking shill for the Democratic Party, here is the admonition I sounded later on in this same commentary:

All the same, the Obama administration does have some splainin’ to do. Because it was put on notice that terrorists were targeting this specific outpost in Benghazi, but it failed to either evacuate all personnel or reinforce security.

Nonetheless, it behooves those hurling patriotic indignation at this failure, which resulted in the killing of four Americans, to appreciate that it pales in comparison to the failure of the Bush administration to heed notice that terrorists were targeting New York City. After all, that failure – on the original 9/11 – resulted in the killing of 3,000.

It is with this background and perspective that I set aside time today to catch some of yet another round of congressional hearings by the Republican-controlled House Oversight & Government Reform Committee on this Benghazi attack. I was particularly keen to see what FOX News was hyping for days would be the “smoking gun.”

Except that, as things turned out, the “whistleblower witnesses” – who, not surprisingly, Democrats dismissed as disgruntled officials at the Department of State – did little more than rehash the accusations (bulleted above) that Republicans have been hurling at the Obama Administration from day one.

But let me hasten to clarify that I am convinced the Administration engaged in a cover up of its security failures, which included whitewashing the infamous CIA talking points by deleting all references to terrorists to make them comport with Obama’s re-election narrative. Never mind that Republicans are on record repeatedly voting against Administration requests for funds to increase security at U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide, which, arguably, is why Benghazi was left so defenseless.

I am even more convinced, however, that Republicans have fatally undermined their credibility by accusing Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of the far more impeachable offense of preventing the military from flying to the aid of American officials when that consulate came under attack.

After all, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey have already testified in congressional hearings that Obama ordered them to do everything possible to render immediate aid, and that they did. And none of today’s witnesses testified in any way that contradicted Panetta and Dempsey’s testimony.

More to the point, though, here in a nutshell is why today’s Benghazi hearing, which featured Republicans acting like prosecutors and Democrats acting like defense attorneys, amounted to much ado about nothing; or, as Hillary exclaimed when Republicans were giving her the third degree in a previous hearing about whether this was a religious protest or a terrorist attack:

With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans… What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.

(FOX News, January 23, 2012)

Republicans having been trying to impeach Obama from day one of his presidency with the same “destructive obsession and monomania” with which Ahab was trying to harpoon that whale in Moby Dick. And, captained by their Ahab personified, Republican Chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Darrell Issa of California, they seem fated to similar failure.

Not least because these self-righteous political jihadists simply cannot overcome the hypocrisy inherent in trying to nail Obama for lying about Benghazi, after covering up for Ronald Reagan when he lied about Iran Contra (where, despite an official arms embargo, his administration was selling arms to Iran to fund Nicaraguan freedom fighters – aka terrorists); and covering up for George W. Bush when he lied about WMDs (where, despite clear and convincing evidence that none existed, he ordered the invasion of Iraq purportedly to find them).

Not to mention the instructive precedent Republicans set by trying in vain to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about having sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski.  Apropos of which, besides impeaching Obama, they are hell-bent on so indicting Hillary for her role in this Benghazi cover up that she would not even think of running for president in 2016, let alone coasting on her current trajectory right into the White House. Of course their efforts to thwart Hillary’s campaign by framing her as an incompetent liar will prove even more futile than the Clintons’ efforts to thwart Obama’s 2008 campaign by framing it as a “fairytale.”

That said, I can think of no better epilogue for all congressional hearings on the Benghazi attack than the following remarks by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin):

I don’t think there is a smoking gun here to day. I don’t think there is even a lukewarm slingshot…

[This committee has held nine hearings on Benghazi.] Maybe it’s time we start looking at how best to protect our embassies instead of rehashing the same old stories.

(House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Hearing on Benghazi Consulate Attack, C-SPAN 3, May 8, 2013)

Frankly, for what it’s worth, when it comes to lying to the American people, I say a plague on both their parties! After all, nobody can gainsay that, if this were a Republican administration, Democrats would be trying to score the same partisan political points — the truth, to say nothing of embassy/consular security, be damned.

NOTE: It is perhaps an indication of how ill-fated today’s hearing was that even FOX News gave it short shrift as it joined all other networks in previewing, covering, and analyzing the guilty verdict in the Jodi Arias murder trial, which generated gladiatorial and prurient public interest in equal measure. In fact, begrudging Republicans even had to compete for coverage with the latest “breaking news” on the macabre kidnappings of those three teenagers in Cleveland, Ohio 10 years ago – who were finally rescued yesterday.

Related commentaries:
Benghazi-gate…

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Wednesday, at 5:54 pm

I have infuriated more than a few people in friendly debates by dismissing Niall Ferguson as being to academia what Donald Trump is to business.

Ferguson is a professor of History at Harvard who seems to prefer playing a political pundit on TV. But the following should give you a sense of why I think this has turned him into a political hack:

Just when I thought I could not become any more cynical [about pundits hurling insults and partisan talking points as informed opinion] comes Niall Ferguson’s partisan hit job on President Obama…

He delivered a diatribe about ‘why we need a new president,’ professing regret that, despite his best wishes, President Obama has failed to keep his campaign promises – especially on the economy and deficit. Never mind that his main points, which he belabors in the current issue of Newsweek, are readily belied by a comprehensive tally of all of Obama’s ‘promises made and promises kept’ by Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.

(“Niall Ferguson: from Eminent Historian to Political Hack,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 21, 2012)

To be fair to Trump, however, NBC actually pays him big bucks to make a mockery of his profession for the sake of entertainment. Whereas Harvard pays Ferguson to propagate the excellence in liberal-arts education for which it is so well known.

Therefore, imagine how this university must have felt when he generated the following headline at a conference of financial advisers in Carlsbad, California on Friday:

John Maynard Keynes had it all wrong because he was gay and childless says Harvard professor.

(Daily Mail, May 4, 2013)

It stemmed from the glib response he gave to a question about Keynes’s economic theories. More to the point, though, Ferguson arguing that Keynes’s economic theories are wrong because he was gay and childless is every bit as ignorant and offensive as Trump arguing that Obama’s political policies are wrong because he is African and Muslim.

But I do not believe for a moment that Ferguson actually believes what he said; nor do I believe that he is the least bit homophobic:

I’ve read enough of his published works to believe that Ferguson’s criticisms derive far more from his academic aversion to the Keynesian policies Obama favors than from anything having to do with his race. I addressed the philosophical differences between them in this respect in ‘Rational Markets vs. Keynesian Economics,’ The iPINIONS Journal, September 23, 2010.

(“Niall Ferguson: from Eminent Historian to Political Hack,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 21, 2012)

Instead, I am convinced that, while Ferguson relishes the gravitas that comes with being a university professor, he really relishes the celebrity that comes with being a political pundit. Moreover, that he has become so intoxicated with that celebrity he’d rather hurl political insults than engage in academic debate.

Indeed, as this second quote above from my April 2012 commentary indicates, he sounded so much like a Tea-Party hack in criticizing Obama’s economic policies that I was as compelled to defend him against charges of racism as I was to attack the patently flawed points of his criticism.

But just as leaving his White wife (and three kids) for his Black mistress (Somali-born former Dutch MP and anti-Islamist crusader Ayaan Hirsi Ali) was a mitigating factor with respect to charges of racism; having homosexual friends, not least among them the very popular and openly gay columnist Andrew Sullivan, should be a mitigating factor with respect to charges of homophobia. The latter also pertains to his specious contention (in an article in the April 22, 1995 edition of Spectator magazine) that Keynes adopted a pro-German view of negotiations on the Treaty of Versailles because he had a gay crush on a German representative to the conference….

In fact, the only difference between his race-baiting harangue against Obama last year and his gay-baiting harangue against Keynes last week is that Tea Partiers have made the former so politically acceptable that Ferguson felt no need to cover his professional ass with a groveling apology – as he duly did in this case:

I should not have suggested that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay; this was doubly stupid. I had forgotten that Keynes’s wife Lydia miscarried.

My disagreements with Keynes’s economic philosophy have never had anything to do with his sexual orientation.

(“An Unqualified Apology,” Niall Ferguson Blog, May 4, 2013)

I just cannot overstate how stupefying it is that Ferguson seems more interested these days in aping conservative carnival barkers like Ann Coulter than eminent historians like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. For only this explains his newly acquired penchant for launching ad hominem attacks on liberal academics like Paul Krugman.

What is certain though is that no carnival barker worth his/her salt would ever apologize for anything that gets the kind of media attention Ferguson’s remark about Keynes got – no matter how repugnant to socio-political sensibilities.

No doubt Harvard forced him to issue this apology to limit its reputational damage … and to save his job. But it does nothing to redress the sad fact that this once-eminent historian now presents himself as little more than a snarky, self-possessed intellectual.

The real point of me isn’t that I’m good looking. It’s that I’m clever.

This was Ferguson describing, with faux modesty and imperious earnestness, his crossover appeal for a September 5, 2011 profile in the London Telegraph: perhaps too clever by half, no?

Related commentaries:
Niall Ferguson…
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Living martyr with a cause
Female Salman Rushdie…

Jacob Zuma, the constitutionally gaffe-prone president of South Africa, had his long-suffering people scratching their heads again last week. This time because it seems he saw nothing undemocratic, or even improper, in granting permission to one of his patrons, the Gupta family, to use a South African military base as their private airport.

Evidently, the Guptas wanted to spare the hundreds of guests they invited to a big, fat Indian wedding all of the indignities that attend landing at and departing from civilian airports; you know, like having to mingle with riff-raff; to say nothing of concerns about personal security or loss of expensive wedding gifts as regular baggage handlers offload the plane: this is Africa after all.

But, in fairness to Zuma, what’s the point in being an African dictator wannabe if one can’t grant one’s friends such simple favors, eh?

And how democratic of him to fire the officials who facilitated his favor, instead of jailing the commentators who criticized it. Amandla!

Twitter and other social media have turned public consciousness into a sieve through which gigabytes of information pass, but nary a byte is retained. Therefore, it would not surprise me if only few people can recall that Tim Tebow was as much a media darling this time last year as Jason Collins is today.

Tebow was a surprise first-round draft pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, then surprisingly became the starter in the fifth game of the 2011 season, and then shockingly led the Broncos to a series of improbable comeback victories and became arguably the NFL’s biggest star.

And now Tebow is with the Jets, one of the many teams he beat with a great fourth-quarter comeback last season

(NBC Sports, March 21, 2012)

In fact, given the media coverage back then, one could be forgiven for thinking that Tebow was the Football equivalent of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Which is why GQ magazine saw nothing blasphemous in running a September 2012 cover featuring Tebow – posing more like Adonis than Jesus – with the following messianic headline … in all caps:

NFL KICK-OFF 2012: BROTHERS, HAVE YOU ACCEPTED TIM TEBOW AS YOUR SUNDAY SAVIOR?

You’d think a born-again Christian like Tebow would fear going to Hell for participating in such sacrilegious self-promotion. But he encouraged it – not just by continually praying during Football games, but by doing so in pharisaic fashion: conspicuously alone and on bended knee – a schtick his meme-obsessed fans/disciples turned into a cultural phenomenon called “Tebowing.” Not to mention the mock-crucifixion pose he struck in his beefcake spread inside his Icarian issue of GQ….

But I was no fan of his praying, and even less a fan of his playing.

Here, for example, is how I illustrated the unwarranted praise he received for the latter:

Nothing demonstrates how exaggerated and misplaced much of the praise he’s getting is quite like that being lavished upon him for Denver’s upset victory over the heavily favored Pittsburg Steelers in Sunday’s AFC wild-card game. Here’s why:

Denver clinched it in spectacular fashion with an 80-yard touchdown pass from Tebow to Demaryius Thomas on the first play in overtime (the teams were tied 23-23 at the end of regulation).

To listen to most sports analysts and commentators, however, you’d think this play happened because Tebow hiked the ball to himself, passed it to himself, and then eluded tackles as he scampered down the field to seal the victory … all by himself.

Whereas, it happened only because Thomas caught a 20-yard pass from Tebow and then scampered 60 yards for the touchdown, eluding tackles and stiff arming defenders along the way.

So how would you feel if you were Thomas and the entire world reacted to this play — not just by focusing on Tim “tebowing” in prayer up at midfield instead of on you jumping for joy down in the end zone, but by glorifying him as if he were the second coming of Jesus Christ and you were just the donkey he rode in on?

(“The Divine Tim Tebow? Puhleeese!” The iPINIONS Journal, January 12, 2012)

And here is the writing on the wall I provided for every NFL team and fan in this respect:

Signing Petyon Manning to replace Tim Tebow exposes Tebow as nothing more than the passing media fad I said he was. It also reinforces what seems to have been lost in the hype surrounding him: namely, that teams would rather rely on a player’s talent than his prayer to win Football games.

That said, I have no doubt that some other team will be happy to exploit what little remains of the ‘tebowing’ phenomenon by signing Tebow to hang out on the side lines like a de facto mascot.

(“Denver Broncos: We want Peyton; Tebow can go to Hell,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 20, 2012)

Which is why I thought the Jets knew exactly what they were getting when they hired Tebow:

After re-signing their young franchise quarterback Mark Sanchez to a three-year extension just last month, the only possible reason for the Jets signing Tebow is to profit from all of the sideline hype they hope he will generate (or like I said, to use him like a de facto mascot).

(“Tebow to the Jets,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 23, 2012)

Alas, this most celebrated quarterback in recent memory could not even pass muster as a sideline attraction, which I correctly predicted was all he would ever be in the NFL:

The Jets have released quarterback Tim Tebow… The former Heisman Trophy winner … alienated himself from many teammates and coaches last season. He barely played, even in wildcat situations, after being acquired from Denver in 2012 – a move many believed originated with owner Woody Johnson and not the football staff.

(CBS Sports, April 29, 2013)

Frankly, Tebow had to know his days were numbered when, midway through last season, “gangnam style” replaced “tebowing” as the latest viral sensation. And now that it’s clear his presence on the sidelines does more to undermine than uplift esprit de corps, there really is no reason for any team to hire him.

On the other hand, I think he would make a killing as a mega-church, prosperity-gospel preaching televangelist….

Related commentaries:
Divine Tebow…
Denver Broncos: We want Peyton…
Tebow to the Jets

It has become de rigueur for celebrities from around the world to make pilgrimages to South Africa just for self-indulgent photo ops with Nelson Mandela. Nobody has lamented this trend more than I:

He’s treated more as a tourist attraction these days (like the Statue of Liberty or, perhaps more to the point, a Carnival freak worthy of being shot by Charles Eisenmann) than as an elder statesman.

(“Zuma Snubs Obama (Michelle that is),” The iPINIONS Journal, June 24, 2011)

Therefore, you might think I was crestfallen when I read yesterday that even his former ANC comrades, led by President Jacob Zuma, are commandeering photo ops with him for political gain:

As leaders from the governing African National Congress arrange themselves around Mandela for a photo opportunity, an unamused looking Mandela barely moves and never smiles.

The stunt has caused anger in South Africa where many have accused the government of parading the anti-apartheid hero on TV for political gain.

(Daily Mail, May 1, 2013)

But I determined long ago that Mandela’s successors have betrayed virtually all of the values that made the ANC’s anti-Apartheid struggle an international common cause and categorical imperative:

Zuma’s efforts to silence Zapiro [a critically acclaimed political cartoonist who revels in caricaturing Zuma's political shortcomings] – aided by the rabble-rousing trade unionists (COSATU) and unreformed communists (SACP) who have turned the ruling ANC from a governing coalition into a band of pillagers – should serve as a dire warning of what South Africa will become under his leadership…

But don’t take my word for it; instead, here is what no less a person than the Nobel Laureate for Literature, Nadine Gordimer, said in a May 10, 2011 BBC interview about what Zuma and the ANC are doing to South Africa:

‘The original values of the ANC are being betrayed in many areas of our social life and our political life… I maintain the right to criticize my own party. I feel it’s a duty that we who are in the ANC must say what we think when the ANC does wrong….’

(“South Africa ‘Betraying Its Values,’” The iPINIONS Journal, May 13, 2011)

Alas, I can only pray that God will spare Mandela any more of these indignities. But I’m not hopeful; not least because nobody is doing more to exploit his good name and trash his dignity than members of his own family:

I can think of no socially redeeming value in the Mandelas airing their dirty laundry on TV the way the Kardashians do. And God forbid they cast Mandela as a feature player (in Weekend-at-Bernie’s fashion) in their faux story lines to boost ratings.

(“Is Nothing Sacred? ‘Being Mandela’- the Reality-TV Show?” The iPINIONS Journal, March 18, 2013)

In fact, things are bound to get even trashier and more undignified:

Mandela is second only to Coca-Cola as a global brand.

And the battle for the rights to exploit it has turned Mandela against Mandela and his grandchildren against some of his oldest, most trusted advisers.

Even as he receives medical care at his Johannesburg home, a string of undignified money-making ventures bear the Mandela name.

(Daily Mirror, April 27, 2013)

Related commentaries:
Zuma snubs Obama…

When the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in the 2000 Bush vs. Gore presidential election, it established the untenable precedent of political candidates looking to the courts to win elections they lost at the polls.

Even worse, this decision, which effectively handed the election to George W. Bush, called into question the credibility and integrity of the Court in ways not seen since its ill-fated Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896.

Plessy, of course, is the case that established the untenable precedent of “separate-but-equal” Jim Crow laws, which codified the presumptions of White supremacy that gave rise to America’s original sin of slavery.

But let me hasten to clarify that, unlike fellow liberals/progressives, I do not think that, had the Court not intervened, Al Gore would have won.

On the contrary, I am convinced that, because the entire election came down to Florida – a state controlled by Republicans, there were too many generally accepted ways for political machinations to give the state to Bush.  Not to mention that, had Gore been worthy enough to win his own home state of Tennessee, he would’ve won the presidency regardless of the outcome in Florida.

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve reargued the merits of Bush v. Gore and engaged in counterfactual debates about how different the world would be if Gore had won. But all such arguments and debates are moot – a point last week’s dedication of the George W. Bush presidential library and museum in Texas brought into stark relief.

What is relevant, however, is my abiding belief that the Court exercised poor, if not biased, judgment in taking this case in the first place. And it’s in this respect that I have been unsparing in my criticisms:

Beyond honoring precedents, though, I suspect all justices will be keen to regain the institutional integrity and goodwill the Court lost after Bush v. Gore. Because that case required (conservative justices) to disregard long-established precedents to arrive at what was clearly more of a political decision in favor of Bush than a legal one based on the merits of the case.

Indeed, the judicial activism that made a mockery of their conservative jurisprudential philosophy in Bush v. Gore was shameful enough. I doubt all five conservative justices will risk compounding that mockery by overturning Obamacare.

(“Supreme Court to Rule on Landmark Healthcare Reform Law,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 23, 2011)

This is why I was somewhat heartened this week when retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor expressed profound regret for being on the Court that took Bush v. Gore.

It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue. Maybe the Court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye…’ [Taking it] gave the Court a less-than-perfect reputation.

(New York Times, April 29, 2013)

As vindication goes, it does not get any more authoritative than having O’Connor, the first female and perhaps the most centrist justice ever, affirm my indictment of the Supreme Court’s decision to intervene in that fateful presidential election of 2000.

But I hope O’Connor will forgive me for thinking that it’s only her concern about her legacy that is now compelling her to distance herself from this case, which can be fairly judged as the worst politicization of the Court in over a century.

After all, she voted with the conservatives to anoint Bush president of the United States. She probably wishes that, like Bush, she had a library and museum dedicated to spinning her revisionist take on the seminal events of her tenure. (For example, at Bushworld, the invasion of Iraq will be recorded for posterity not as the most costly military blunder in the history of mankind, but as a holy crusade to spread freedom and rid the world of the most evil tyrant since Adolf Hitler.)

Her real regret should be that she did not have the judicial courage and foresight to vote with the liberal justices.

After all, as retired Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his 2011 memoir, the liberals duly reasoned back then, when it really mattered, that it was not only “frivolous,” but brazenly political for the Court to be deciding a presidential election.

Related commentaries:
Court to rule on healthcare reform…
Obama nominates Elena…

Ex-Baltimore Ravens and gay rights activist Brendon Ayanbadejo has been stoking media interest in recent weeks with his efforts to have four closeted NFL players come out at the same time.

Well, one NBA player, Jason Collins, just stole their thunder by becoming the first male professional athlete (in one of the four major sports) to come out, while still playing … technically.

I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m Black. And I’m gay.

This is the seemingly matter-of-fact way Collins came out in the current issue of Sports Illustrated. Incidentally, he may not have intended this, but I think it’s a challenge to the acute strain of homophobia among far too many Blacks that Collins proclaimed his gayness on par with his Blackness … and properly so!

But in this age of political correctness, especially considering the backlash that attends political incorrectness, it’s hardly surprising that he is receiving near-unanimous praise for “raising [his] hand.”

Everyone from former President Bill Clinton to NBA superstar Kobe Bryant has already chimed in on Twitter to express unconditional support. And, not to be outdone, Obama rang from the White House to offer his presidential seal of approval….

I support him too.

Except that Collins is a 12-year journeyman who has played for six NBA teams, and is currently looking for his seventh. Therefore, one can be forgiven for thinking that his courageous stand is somewhat undermined by the fact that he waited to take it on his way out of the league.

What’s more, I am cynical enough to believe that, given the way he’s being hailed as the Jackie Robinson of gay athletes, an NBA team will sign him as much for his pioneering PR value as for what little contribution he can make at this point as a glorified bench warmer.

Which begs an apology to Robinson who took his courageous stand in the prime of his career. Not to mention that Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova blazed this gay trail for female professional athletes decades ago; or, for an even greater profile in courage, that Britney Griner, the top pick in the 2013 WNBA Draft, came out in her own Sports Illustrated feature just weeks ago….

This is why, with all due respect to Jason Collins, I’m reserving my unqualified praise for the male professional athlete who has the courage to come out when he still has skin in the game….

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Monday, at 4:50 pm

A French lawyer called me a legal “ignare” for asserting that the tabloid and paparazzo responsible for the topless photos of Kate Middleton that went viral last year should be prosecuted. I don’t speak French; but I knew what he meant.

And he was not the only one who questioned my legal judgment. For the general view was that I was according her a royal privilege that constituted an affront to the democratic principle of freedom of the press.

But the irony (and retort) that escaped my critics is that I have probably written more about the affront the British monarchy itself constitutes to democracy than all of them combined. More to the point, far from according Kate another royal privilege, here in fact is what I asserted:

My disgust over these pictures has nothing to do with who she is. For, unlike so many others venting royal indignation, I would feel the same way if Angelina Jolie or Julia Roberts were the victim of such a prurient and mercenary invasion of privacy…

I wish governments around the world would enact laws making it a serious crime to take a picture of any person in a place where that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. And it does not matter if that person is fully nude or fully clothed…

This kind of commercial exploitation of one’s privacy is clearly a form of rape and warrants commensurate punishment. This means serious jail time and fines that would surely bankrupt any paparazzo foolish enough to even shoot such a picture in the first place.

(“Topless Photos of Future Queen Kate for All to See,” The iPINIONS Journal, September 17, 2013)

Yet such was the universal reveling in Kate’s titillating exposure that, far from worrying about criminal charges, most tabloid editors seemed worried about not getting in on the act.

Indeed, here is how French Closer magazine’s Laurence Pieau, the editor who commissioned a paparazzo to capture the compromising shots, expressed virtual contempt for those of us who expressed outrage:

These photos are not in the least shocking. They show a young woman sunbathing topless, like millions of women you see on beaches… Criticising our magazine is stupid.

(Daily Mail, September 20, 2012)

Well, it seems my vindication is at hand:

Closer, the first media outlet to release the controversial images, has been under criminal investigation since September, but Agence France-Presse now reports that two key players have been indicted: Ernesto Mauri, Chief Executive of Mondadori France (publisher of Closer) and a photographer of La Provence, a regional newspaper.

(Huffington Post, April 24, 2013)

Of course, notwithstanding the Gallic arrogance that defines the French, you’d think Closer’s indignant editor would have gotten fool-proof clearance from lawyers before publishing topless photos of the future queen of England. After all, any fool could see that publishing them was fraught with political and legal liability – despite claims that the paparazzo shot them with telephoto lens, while crouching on a public road 1000 yards away

In any case, apropos of the schadenfreude tabloids trade in, the irony is not lost on me that these criminal indictments generated almost as much tabloid sensation last week as those topless photos did last year.

All that’s left now is for the French court to convict and penalize Closer so harshly that, even if paparazzi are craven enough to snap compromising pictures of public figures in private places, no tabloid would dare publish them.

Related commentaries:
Topless photos…

Wilfred S. Coakley Jr. was an extraordinary man. Nothing demonstrated this quite like the way he regarded his impressive accomplishments in the fields of boxing, finance, insurance, writing and law (to name just a few) as if they were, well, ordinary.

Former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt popularized the proverb, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” In so many ways, Coakley was the personification of this proverb.

Except, given that he was not just a skilled boxer, but the first Bahamian president of the Commonwealth Boxing Council, it might be more fitting to think of him as  “an iron fist inside a velvet glove.”

As indicated, he left an enviable professional legacy – most notably as a lawyer specializing in corporate and litigation work.

But it is arguable that his professional life is even more distinguished by what he did as chairman of the Bahamas Boxing Commission. Interestingly enough, the highlight in this respect was the way he used his legal skills to modify the Bahamas Boxing Act to bring its rules and regulations into compliance with international standards.

Indeed, such was the pervasive nature of his influence in this arena that he was instrumental in promoting Elisha Obed, the only world boxing champion The Bahamas has ever produced.

Apropos of promoting, this is where Coakley, as pupil supervisor, touched my life. But in keeping with his character, I shan’t wax too sentimental.  Instead, I shall suffice to share that I could not have wished for a more esteemed, professional and nurturing mentor to present me when I was called to the Bar of The Bahamas in 2003.

Truth be told, Coakley touched the lives of many people who are far more acclaimed and suitable to eulogize him than I. But I fear no contradiction in asserting that his greatest accomplishment was marrying his lovely wife Dorothy in 1966.

I know this because I was privileged to meet him at a point in his life when what discernible pride he had in everything else simply paled in comparison to the unbridled pride he exuded in the love and adoration his wife lavished upon him.

My distinct impression was that he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life indulging her every whim to compensate, however modestly, for all her years of selfless devotion to him and their family.

How ironic and sad, then, that fate almighty chose this time to throw a devastating blow at this master of the sweet science of boxing.

He suffered a catastrophic stroke five years ago that left him bedridden, and robbed his wife, family, and friends of, among other things, the loving and protective companionship that made him such a terrific husband; the wisdom and strength that made him such a terrific father; and the wit and loyalty that made him such a terrific friend.

But it proved a final testament to his good sense (and good fortune) to marry Dorothy that, instead of wallowing in self-pity at her care-giving fate, she became the personification of those sacred vows:

… to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

Accordingly, I pay tribute this day not only to a man whose endearing humility defied his stellar achievements, but also to a woman whose unwavering devotion defied her heavy burdens.

Coakley died peacefully at his home on April 11. He was 78.

Farewell, Wilfred.

NOTE: Funeral Service will be held tomorrow, Saturday, April 27th, 2013, 10:00 a.m. at St. Agnes Anglican Church, Baillou Hill Road, Nassau, Bahamas.