Fixing the Middle East

So much for the Middle East and Obama, maybe eight years from now we'll take another crack at fixing the region.

From Haaretz, an Israel newspaper,

A photo released by the White House, which shows Obama talking on the phone with Netanyahu on Monday, speaks volumes: The president is seen with his legs up on the table, his face stern and his fist clenched, as though he were dictating to Netanyahu: "Listen up and write 'Palestinian state' a hundred times. That's right, Palestine, with a P." As an enthusiast of Muslim culture, Obama surely knows there is no greater insult in the Middle East than pointing the soles of one's shoes at another person. Indeed, photos of other presidential phone calls depict Obama leaning on his desk, with his feet on the floor.

Highlight's of Obama's Press Conference

Billy Mays Interviews Obama - Watch more Funny Videos

Rediscovering George Orwell

Since when did we get all indignant over the discomfort of a handful of magnates and tycoons? Obama is now being pilloried as a socialist bent on the destruction of capitalism, and everyone’s got their tea-bags out – and, for what? Well, Obama wants to allow the Bush tax cuts to lapse which will raise the top marginal tax rate of the richest Americans to 39.6% -- about 10 percentage points less than what they paid under most of the Reagan administration, and lots less than what they paid under Nixon or Eisenhower. (Remember those idyllic days of the 50’s when we still had our moral center, gay meant happy and carefree and only white people were ever seen on television and in the movies? And we taxed the richest Americans at a top marginal tax rate of 91%? Sigh.) Meanwhile, the tax rates for the rest of us under Obama’s proposals will be modestly reduced.

So, I’m left still scratching my head: why exactly are people grabbing their torches and pitchforks?

There was a time when people were less sympathetic to the plight of the filthy rich. I recently read a book review (A Fine Rage: George Orwell's revolutions by James Wood) of two newly published collections of essays of George Orwell -- Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays and All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays -- which have been compiled and introduced by author George Packer. You remember Orwell from reading Animal Farm in high school. Apparently, Orwell wrote some slam-bang essays as well, which you didn’t read.

Despite having been hijacked by the Right over the years – he was virulently anti-communist and he really didn’t like pacifists, either – Orwell passionately railed against the privileged ruling classes and hoped that the British class system was on the way to extinction. In the midst of the Second World War he wrote: "This war, unless we are defeated, will wipe out most of the existing class privileges. There are every day fewer people who wish them to continue."

Orwell wanted above all to see Hitler defeated and saw class differences as a hindrance to the war effort. He believed that great disparities in wealth fanned the flames of discontent among ordinary people and sapped them of patriotic resolve. "The lady in the Rolls-Royce car is more damaging to morale than a fleet of Goering's bombing planes."

Plus, he had a generally low opinion of the rich. He called England, "a family with the wrong members in control." He observed that, "Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there."

Orwell, of course, had no problem with taxing the rich; the very idea filled him with a sort of sadistic glee. In discussing the hardships of British workers during the war, Orwell had this to say:

The working class will have to suffer terrible things. And they will suffer them, almost indefinitely, provided that they know what they are fighting for. They are not cowards. . . . But they will want some kind of proof that a better life is ahead for themselves and their children. The one sure earnest of that is that when they are taxed and overworked they shall see that the rich are being hit even harder. And if the rich squeal audibly, so much the better. [I added the italics]

Today, income inequality is more pronounced than ever. In real dollars, the American GDP has tripled since 1960. But only the wealthiest have seen any of this increase. In the last two decades alone, the income level of the upper 1% of families has almost tripled but, otherwise, only the income levels of the top 20% of families have significantly increased. Today, the top 20% receive over half the country's income and their share is growing. Wages for the rest of the country have remained stagnant.

The imbalance in wealth is far more dramatic than the imbalance of incomes. The top 1% of the population has more than a third of the country's wealth and the top 5% own almost 60%.

On top of all this, who got us into this economic mess but a bunch of over-indulged investment bankers and mortgage brokers? Where is Orwell when we need him?

Everything I need to know about the president I learned by studying his March Madness picks.

Chris Good says that there's a lot you can tell about a president just by looking at his bracket. See A Bracket You Can Believe In.

You can decide for yourself: Here are Obama's picks. (Apparently, at one point, he had Pitt going all the way.)

The photo Barack Obama did not want you to see.

Obama catches sight of Sean Hannity.

Thoughts on Willow and Politics

Long before The Lord of the Rings was committed to celluloid, there was Willow.

Willow is one of those sword and sorcery epics in which an ordinary, rather diminutive fellow is plucked from his pedestrian, ho-hum life by events beyond his control and then called upon to – well – save the world. Of course, here, as in other stories, he gets help along the way from some talented warriors and a powerful sorceress.

I draw your attention to one of the movie's more memorable scenes: as a pitched battle rages between the armies of good and evil, Joanne Whalley (as Sorsha, daughter of the villain of the picture and a leader of the evil forces), finds herself transfixed by the figure of Val Kilmer (as swordsman deluxe Madmartigan) battling a two headed dragon which he eventually dispatches with enough derring-do to make Errol Flynn jealous. Just watching Madmartigan wield his broadsword is too much for her to resist (hello, calling Dr. Freud) and -- there on the spot -- she falls head over heals in love with him and joins the good guys.

I’ve always wondered about the plausibility of this scene. That is, until now.

Kathleen Parker, the southern conservative syndicated columnist, was among the harshest critics of Barack Obama during the campaign. Back in May, for example, she questioned his patriotism in her column, suggesting that Obama didn’t "get" American core values. Now, after seeing him in action, she has become hopelessly enamored. The day after the election, she wrote:

Fess up. You wept. OK, I’ll go first. Tears came twice. First, when John McCain hushed his booing crowd to acknowledge the significance of this nation’s electing an African-American to the presidency. Second, when Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech.

And more recently, she held up the Obamas as models for conservatives everywhere:

You want Ward Cleaver? Meet Barack Obama. Michelle is June Cleaver with a law degree. Family values don’t get any more traditional than the Obamas, who ooze marital bliss and whose adorable daughters make feminist cynics want to bake cookies and learn to smock.

Though we may perish of boredom, the Obamas may do more to elevate the American family than all the pro-marriage initiatives conceived by those who claim to speak for the deity.

And what about Obama’s change we can believe in?

The change we’ve been waiting for may not be immediately quantifiable, but personal responsibility, educational ambition and smart public diplomacy — all by example rather than exhortation — could go a long way toward curingwhat ails us.

Of course, Parker is not the only dyed-in-the-wool conservative to swoon for Obama. Guys, too, have fallen under his spell. Mr. Conservative’s son, Christopher Buckley, ended up endorsing Obama, and lost his job on the National Review for it. And David Brooks, token conservative columnist for the New York Times, can’t suppress his admiration for the guy (“And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons [Obama’s cabinet nominations], I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition.”)

Sometimes, the good guy is so good, we just can’t resist. Unfortunately, Obama’s dragon has a lot more than two heads – economic collapse, spiraling deficit, and a foreign policy in shambles, among others. But don’t get too discouraged, though. If he can woo the likes of Kathleen Parker over to his side, he may be capable of anything.