Cheat Sheet

Fareed Zakaria writes in Newsweek.  “As economist Jeffrey Sachs points out, ‘We've wanted lots of government, but we haven't wanted to pay for it.’ … Every city, every county and every state has wanted to preserve its many and proliferating operations and yet not raise taxes. How to square this circle? By borrowing,” he writes. At some point, he suggests, consumers had to stop using their homes as banks and spending money that they didn't have. We must all learn to live within our means. “This discipline will be painful for a country that has gotten used to having it all,” Zakaria writes.

Well, I guess he should know. Karl Rove has no intention of rushing to see Oliver Stone’s biopic of George W., but from what he has heard it is “clearly based in a reality that only exists within Oliver Stone’s left cortex.” There are things to learn from the president’s personal Machiavelli's movie criticism, like the fact that George W. hasn’t used the F-word in Rove’s hearing for the last 35 years. And that the pocketbook Freud explanations for the relationship between George H.W. and his wayward son are “ludicrous.” “The idea that this is all about a tortured father-son relationship – virtually everyone who knows these two men admires their relationship….Maybe Oliver Stone had a tortured relationship with his father, but the relationship between these two is really special to behold.” Touching, really.

“With just three weeks to go until Election Day, the McCain campaign has launched a nationwide talent search to find angry audience members for their increasingly hate-filled rallies,” reports America ’s satire king, Andy Borowitz. “In order to stock their rallies with the requisite number of irate white voters, the McCain camp has reached out to Hollywood, retaining the services of casting agent Tracy Klugian, who found the angry crowds for the 2000 film Gladiator.” When the public face of the Republican Party becomes that of Network’s Howard Beale, it takes a Borowitz to point out how ugly that is. With humor.

It’s a grim list. The six big events of the week, and four are downright scary. The question being asked about Morgan Stanley now is “will it or won’t it survive.” In Iceland, “In the space of a few days, practically the entire banking system has been seized by the government.” The Royal Bank of Scotland’s share price is down 80% in a year. And the bailout? “Investors have gone from calling for the rescue plan to believing it won’t be able to contain the crisis. And that fear has the Treasury considering other measures and is leading to calls for the government to nationalize the banking system.” That’s how black the world looks from Wall Street right now.

Sorry, but there is no virtue in apologizing for an historic crime like slavery. And such public acts of abeisance undermine genuine morality by replacing remorse with the right thing to be seen doing. “False Apology Syndrome is a rich but poisonous mixture of self-importance, libertinism, condescension, bad faith, loose thinking, and indifference to the effects it has on those who are apologized to,” argues Theodore Dalrymple.

A trip through El Salvador surprised ecologist Susanna Hecht. She was told there were not forests left, but she found an abundance of trees. She called these woodlands “secret forests.” Turned out there trees were resurgent throughout Latin America, including Honduras, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, and in parts of the Amazon. But because scientists and policy-makers were preoccupied with tropical deforestation, Hecht said, they had been slow to take notice.

Andrew Klavan, whose novels and screenplays have been turned into such films as "True Crime" and "Don't Say a Word," lets fly at Hollywood’s lack of patriotism and offers five lies that movie business liberals like to peddle. Is Hollywood really apolitical, just out to make money? Are screenwriters and directors the only ones who can speak truth to power? How liberal are the ideas in liberal movies? His answer to the suggestion that conservatives are not creative enough to work in Hollywood ? “There are a million pro-American, pro-God, pro-family, pro-liberty stories waiting to be told and plenty of good writers and directors to tell them.” But they don’t live in Santa Monica, do they?

Jesus – and Jimmy Carter – said, “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” But in the internet age, does ogling naked ladies on the web constitute adultery? Does porn lead to adultery? Or is it, as Woody Allen said, just making out with the person you love best – yourself? “There’s an obvious line between leafing through a Playboy and pulling a Spitzer on your wife,” writes Ross Douthat. “Adultery is inevitable, but it’s never been universal in the way that pornography has the potential to become.”

The talks have been going on in secret for a month and the deal is well advanced. General Motors will swallow Chrysler and Cerebrus, the private equity firm that owns Chrysler, will walk away with the financial arms of the two businesses, GMAC and Chrysler Financial Services. But auto industry experts say the merger doesn’t address GM’s immediate problem: it’s bleeding $1 billion a month. "GM is in trouble having eight brands and too many dealers, why would they want three more brands and 3,000 more dealers?" asked Maryann Keller, of Maryann Keller & Associates in Stamford , Conn. Merging is sure to mean ending brands and shedding jobs. Ford, meanwhile, is trying to offload its Mazda business. How soon before Henry Ford’s black car adage is changed to: You can have any car, as long as it’s a Ford?

Asked to name their single favorite movie, Obama waffled between three, McCain came straight out for Viva Zapata! This says a lot about McCain as a decisive man with a sense of his own destiny, argues William Kristol in Viva McCain!

A Washington Post article reports today that the genius behind Obama's campaign is … Karl Rove? Well, sort of. In 2004, John Kerry was defeated in part by a massive, unexpected Republican turnout. In order to avoid Kerry's fate, Obama has adopted Turd Blossom's emphasis on ground operations with a strategy of using "local volunteers to pitch to their own neighbors, micro-targeting techniques to identify persuadable independents and Republicans using consumer data, and a focus on exurban and rural areas." In fact, "in scale and ambition, the Obama organization goes beyond even what Rove built."

Amid the non-stop gloom this week, here’s some salt for the United States’ financial wounds: According to the World Economic Forum, our northern neighbor’s banks are the soundest in the world. Canada’s banks scored a 6.8 on a scale of one-to-seven, while the U.S. scored a mere 4.0. America ranked 40 overall, behind Estonia and Namibia. The U.S. remained, however, king of the WEF’s competiveness rankings, which means that, while Canada’s house may be in better order, we can still burn it down.

The gold rush towards California is back, but this time people are putting it on their fingers. A study released earlier this week by the University of California found that 3,800 same-sex couples are rushing to marry in the state each month before November 8, when the public votes on a referendum that could revoke the right. In the last three months, more same-sex couples have married in California than have in Massachusetts over the last four years. "For certain, some portion of these 11,000 are not Californian residents," said researcher Gary Gates. The counties with the biggest increases in weddings "tend to correlate with tourist places in the state."

Hundreds of American prisoners remained hostage in North Vietnam ’s camps after John McCain and 590 other prisoners were released in 1973, says the Pulitzer-prize winner Sydney Schanberg. And McCain, he alleges, has played the central role in Congress in keeping their abandonment secret: they were most likely executed and few if any are alive. His long and detailed investigative article has been strangely shunned by the mainstream press. It can be found in its entirety on the Nation Institute website (nationinstitute.org).