MPW Comments on the MoCo Nondiscrimination Bill
[Update: it was just pointed out to me that Adam isn't writing this series, but Marc Korman]
Adam Marc at Maryland Politics Watch has started a two-part series on what he calls the "Transgender Non-Discrimination Act." It is a very informal discussion, where he starts out talking about the bill over dinner with his dad and ends up studying the bill and considering it from various points of view.
I'm going to cut and paste one section of his post here for you -- if you are following this topic then you will want to follow the link above and read his full post. He seems to expect this to generate some comments, too, probably because he sees what happens over here!
It's always interesting to hear someone's interpretation of the bill.Adam Marc says that part one -- today's post -- deals with the "policy grounds" of the bill, and part two will deal with the "political grounds." Twill be interesting to see how he sees that.
I'm going to cut and paste one section of his post here for you -- if you are following this topic then you will want to follow the link above and read his full post. He seems to expect this to generate some comments, too, probably because he sees what happens over here!
So Why All The Controversy?
I think to most people, those protections sound sensible. I have heard two major complaints about what the bill does. The first is on whether or not employers will be able to control the appearance of their employees. The second is about restrooms, which has monopolized most of the coverage of the legislation.
Regarding employee appearance, the bill specifies that an employer may require an employee to conform to reasonable workplace appearance, grooming, and dress standards. Insofar as those requirements do not violate state or federal law, are consistently applied, and allow employees to dress consistent with their gender identity, the business can impose appearance requirements. I believe that means they can require their employees to dress neatly and in sync with the rest of their employees, but still leaves some discretion and rights to the employee. I am not entirely sure why there is an issue here. I mean, why do I really care what my cable repairman, doctor, or waiter wear, as long as they act in a professional manner and do their jobs?
The more controversial issue is about restrooms. While being considered by the County Council, the issue of restrooms and locker rooms drew the most interest. There was a concern that the legislation would lead to men, or those who appear as men, going to the bathroom in the ladies room or vice versa. Or that men, or those who appear as men, would change in the women’s changing room.
Speaking from nothing but gut feeling, my impression is that even a transgendered individual would probably end up going into the changing room that most conforms with their physical appearance. The bill also makes no changes to sexual harassment or assault law, so if any individual, transgendered or not, acts inappropriately in one of these rooms then they could be subject to prosecution. But if that is not enough, the bill also specifies that the bill does not apply to accommodations that are distinctly private or personal, which the Human Rights Commission can easily define to include restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms. Enhancing that interpretation is that the Council removed a provision explicitly allowing transgendered access to accommodations consistent with gender identity, demonstrating that they did not intend to allow that type of access.
It's always interesting to hear someone's interpretation of the bill.
posted by JimK at 3:31 PM
41 Comments:
Fascinating. Utterly fascinating!
First we have a post where some pro-family guy says the California proposition to define marriage is crucial and, now, some liberal website agrees with arguments TTF has spouted like a whale.
Earthshaking news!
How will you top it tomorrow?
Y'know, anonymous, Jim has no responsibility to post items that you agree with. Last time I checked, this was his blog, not yours.
You want to post right-wing nonsensical drivel? Go for it -- get your own blog and you and the rest of the CRG mouthbreathers can be very happy together.
You'd think this would be an obvious point, but as with so much else, alas no, it must be explained to you. Let's keep it simple --
his blog, his rules.
Your blog, your rules.
Duh.
"Y'know, anonymous, Jim has no responsibility to post items that you agree with. Last time I checked, this was his blog, not yours.
You want to post right-wing nonsensical drivel? Go for it -- get your own blog and you and the rest of the CRG mouthbreathers can be very happy together."
I don't want him to post stuff I agree with.
I like it when puts up lunatic gay agenda stuff so I can argue about it and look really smart.
My complaint about the last two posts is that they were so boring and nothing new.
That's all.
Folks.
Anon, rumor is there may be some breaking news soon, and I'll put something up so you can "look really smart," like you usually do. Sometimes the posts here are just my thoughts, sometimes I cut and paste a news story, sometimes they're off topic. Sometimes I post things that other TTF people don't like or don't agree with. Whatever, it's a blog, and this is a community of people who share opinions and discuss them intelligently and learn from one another, mostly. (You can feel proud, Anon, that last word was there just for you.)
This is like when I wrote about living here in Montgomery County and how much I like it, with the birds and stuff, and you seemed to think it was funny to mock that. You were simply being rude. So what if I post something that isn't that exciting or new or something that isn't really well written or whatever? Why in the world would you see it as your place to make a nasty comment about that? I can't imagine what your world is like, there's You at the center and everything else around to feed You.
JimK
The truth at last:
"I like it when puts up lunatic gay agenda stuff so I can argue about it and look really smart."
"You were simply being rude."
Geesh, man, satire's like that. My apologies.
OK, well, let's limit ourselves to talking about those who don't comment here.
We all know that Obama's an inexperienced flip-flopper but "we" doesn't apply to Barack, who has now convinced himself that he's as hot as an atomic fireball:
"Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?
Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.
It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.
Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
After all, in the words of his own slogan, "we are the ones we've been waiting for," which, translating the royal "we," means: " I am the one we've been waiting for." Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his lectern, until general ridicule -- it was pointed out that he was not yet president -- induced him to take it down.
He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" -- a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' " Obama speaks no French.
His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism . . . that you come out of your isolation. . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?
We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas."
"You were simply being rude."
Geesh, man, satire's like that. My apologies.
I have learned over the past few years that the inability to perceive irony is a defining characteristic of the kind of person we refer to as "conservative."
I'm sorry to tell you, Anon, but there are people who distinguish between satire and rudeness. They really aren't the same thing.
JimK
Thanks for sharing this editorial by Charles Krathammer, Anon. I can see why you like it -- Charles decided to go for a personal attack rather than his usual anaylsis of the candidates' positions on issues. That's why I like this editorial better -- it talks about real issues rather than personal attributes such as McBush's legendary temper. Afterall, the ecomomy is the number one issue voters are focused on.
To paraphrase James Carville, "It's the economy, not personality, stupid."
What McCain Economic Policy?
By Harold Meyerson
Thursday, July 17, 2008; A21
"Government is not the solution to our problem," Ronald Reagan told his fellow Americans in his first inaugural address. "Government is the problem."
For modern American conservatism, Reagan's words may as well have been inscribed on the tablets handed down at Mount Sinai. The market was god and Reagan was its Moses, and Republicans have sworn fealty to both for the past quarter-century. One invariable feature of the 2007-08 Republican primary debates was the effort of each candidate to cast himself as Reagan's one true heir. John McCain proudly recounted how he enlisted as a foot soldier in Reagan's revolution. How was he to know that government was about to become a solution again?
Over the past few months, George W. Bush's administration, which consciously modeled itself after Reagan's, has repeatedly been compelled to bail out private or semi-private financial institutions, re-regulate markets, and rescue beleaguered homeowners. Government, it turns out, is indeed a solution -- at times, the only solution -- for large-scale market failure, a problem not foreseen in the gospel according to Reagan.
Unfortunately for McCain and his fellow Republicans, it's the only gospel they've got. At the very moment when the economy looms larger in Americans' consciousness than it has in decades, McCain comes before the electorate doctrinally adrift.
By his own admission, McCain has never been a student of the economy -- but neither have any number of American presidents. When the economy is humming along, their economic illiteracy has been a problem they can elide. They take refuge in the economic bromides of the time. Their speeches are filled with reaffirmations of their party's economic doctrine.
But as McCain tries to balance the tattered libertarianism of Reaganomics with the financial exigencies of the moment, he and his campaign have moved beyond inconsistency into utter incoherence. He vows to balance the budget while also cutting corporate taxes and making permanent the Bush tax cuts for the rich -- even though the rich and corporations made out like bandits during the Bush "prosperity," while everyone else's incomes stagnated. McCain squares this circle by vowing to cut entitlements, a move that would reduce, rather than enhance, consumer purchasing power at a time of economic downturn (or any other time, for that matter).
Whether Americans are even experiencing a downturn has been a matter of some dispute in the McCain camp, since former senator Phil Gramm, until last week one of McCain's chief surrogates on economic issues, deemed America a nation of "whiners" mistaking subjective insecurity over the economy for an objective economic fact. For McCain, who had the misfortune to be campaigning in Michigan the day that Gramm's remarks dominated campaign news, Gramm's insensitivity was appalling. But McCain has never expressed any concern that Gramm wrote the legislation that enabled the $62 trillion credit default swaps market to remain unregulated, which, as David Corn documented in Mother Jones, meant that banks and hedge funds could accumulate liabilities that they could not cover if the markets -- most particularly, the subprime mortgage market -- went south. To the contrary, McCain has viewed Gramm as one of his economic gurus. "There is no one in America that is more respected on the issue of economics than Senator Phil Gramm," McCain declared in February.
Gramm hasn't been the only McCain economic adviser to sound dissonant notes of late. Bloomberg's Al Hunt reports that Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief, has said that if a bipartisan coalition came up with tax increases on the rich, a McCain administration might embrace the proposal. On Tuesday, however, a campaign spokesman reiterated McCain's opposition to such tax hikes.
How to explain the McCain campaign's glaring contradictions on economic policy? Why do the policy mantras that every campaign uses and needs get so warped and so ignored? Why can't the campaign stay on message? The turmoil in management that has afflicted the campaign from the start surely deserves some of the blame, but I suspect the issues run deeper. One problem is that McCain himself has no real ideas about how to fix the economy, which leaves his tetherless surrogates free to roam the policy landscape. An even deeper problem is that standard-issue Republican economic policy has run out of plausible mantras. The ritual extolling of markets and denigration of government make no sense at a moment when a conservative Republican administration is rushing to save the markets through governmental intervention.
Or, to use Reagan's construction: Republican economics is not the solution to our problem; Republican economics is the problem -- for our nation, surely, and also for candidate McCain.
Charles, like you, goes on the personal attack, talking about Obama's ego, whereas Harold points out, as McBush has admitted, he's "not an expert on Wall Street" or economic issues, which are the number one concern of American voters these days.
"Anonymous" - after Jim and several other writers made it perfectly clear that you are not welcome here, you continue. You just don't get it...I am not sure whether it is because you are a little short of a full tank of gas or you are a glutton for punishment or you are just a colossal ego-stroker (in your words: "I like it when puts up lunatic gay agenda stuff so I can argue about it and look really smart.") Looking really smart has never been your forte, under any circumstances.
I have said repeatedly that you should quit your egotistical self-flagellation here and get your own blog site where others of your ilk can happily join in your chorus. Now others are saying the same thing.
Even elementary school class clowns eventually grow up and become responsible for their actions. How about you?
RT
"I have learned over the past few years that the inability to perceive irony is a defining characteristic of the kind of person we refer to as "conservative.""
Expounding on that thought might be interesting. Why don't you do a post on it? Then I could argue about it and look really smart.
"I'm sorry to tell you, Anon, but there are people who distinguish between satire and rudeness. They really aren't the same thing."
They say that about all great satirists like myself. My friends up here on Mt Laughmore, Swift, Twain and Mencken all agree.
be careful.
It is Anon that makes this blog entertaining and, of course, the way you sputter with outrage but can't refute his points.
I believe that is why Jim has not banned him. He is good for your readership !
A different Anon.
RT,
Anonymous doesn't go away because he gets his thrills annoying the "lunatic gay fringe." Expressing your frustration with him and telling him to go only feeds his narcissism. It's probably best just to ignore him... or as it's stated on some other blogs: "Don't feed the trolls."
Peace,
Cynthia
and peace to you too, Cynthia
and joy to the fishies in the deep blue sea!
"Charles, like you, goes on the personal attack, talking about Obama's ego, whereas Harold points out, as McBush has admitted, he's "not an expert on Wall Street" or economic issues, which are the number one concern of American voters these days."
See, Bea, it goes like this: when you having a debate on issues, like we have here, personal attacks are irrelevant.
When you're picking the leader of the free world, personal considerations are vital. Anyone who has an unrealistic view of his own inadequacies is actually dangerous.
While I'll grant you that even capitalism needs some occasional tinkering to keep the machinery operating, the idea that we should abandon Reaganomics after 25 years of success is crazy. Most of the world, including developing countries, have adopted the model of low marginal tax rates that Ivory Tower Obama wants to reverse. Believe me, no other country would follow his lead.
I can tell you that personal characteristics played a role in the failed campaings of Gore and Kerry (sigh!)
Look at it this way:
Who would you rather have making decisions:
a guy who after 26 years of involvement in the national government has realized that he is no expert on Wall Street
or
a guy with three years of involvement, much of which has been spent on the campaign trail, who thinks he's got it all figured out
?
After Labor Day, the country will focus on this for a couple of months and it's hard to see what they will find that they like about Obama.
In all honesty, it was over for the Democrats when Hillary lost.
Anon's theme song
"we are the ones we've been waiting for,"
Spin it as you will anon, but we are indeed the one’s we’ve been waiting for.
We are the "garden," as it were.
To the extent that one can see this, one can see God.
Try putting it to practice for once, anon.
a guy who after 26 years of involvement in the national government has realized that he is no expert on Wall Street
You mean a guy who praised Phil Graham in February during the primary season as he moved right, but then flip flopped to disavow Graham so he can move to the left during the general election gets your vote? You mean a man who's spent 26 years in the Senate, legislating and governing, a man who has been "involved in national government" all those many years but who still doesn't "get" economics or Wall Street gets your vote?
Well then for sure, you do not represent the majority of residents here in Montgomery County.
Phil Gramm said something that was probably a little unwise but nonetheless true. We aren't in a recession as of now. McCain is distancing himself from Gramm's lack of discretion. Big deal!
Did you take economics during your formal education? All the stuff they taught us when I was in school turned out to be false. As far as "Wall Street", few people can claim to have any expertise. None of these few people were running for President this time. The stock market regularly confounds the "experts". Anyone in MC who doesn't know that is a fool. That McCain realizes he will have to have top-notch advisors is a excellent sign that he is presidential material.
Then, there's Obama. Can we hear in what ways you think he qualifies as an economic expert? Or should we just vote for him because he hasn't said he's not an expert? Billy Ray Cyrus hasn't said that either. Why not vote for him?
One more thing: I have heard McCain say he's not an expert on Wall Street. You keep saying he said that he wasn't an expert on Wall Street or economics. Did he actually say "economics" or is this just one of those Jim Kennedy-esque deceptions that TTF is known for?
"Spin it as you will anon, but we are indeed the one’s we’ve been waiting for.
We are the "garden," as it were.
To the extent that one can see this, one can see God."
Delusions of grandeur are one thing, emslob. Delusions of deity are something else again. You don't think anyone could see God until you and Obama came along?
I've asked you before and need to again:
What does your psychiatrist say about all this?
Andrea- not anon
I've been away from the blog but I see Mn Anon's delusions continue- comparing himself to Twain and Swift. Although perhaps he means Steve Twain and Jerry Swift. And telling Dems what to think- yes, Anon- we all listen to you for our political views.
Sorry, Cynthia- can't help feeding the troll(and yet, why are we insulting trolls by suggesting Anon and they are similar?)
Andrea
Glad you're back, Andrea- for obvious reasons.
"And telling Dems what to think- yes, Anon- we all listen to you for our political views."
I'm not telling you what to think.
I'm just asking questions.
Such as:
When you voted to nominate Obama, what the hell were you thinkin'?
When McCain actually leads in a poll, get back to me. Obama has led every single poll by between 4 and 8 points for several months now. Moreover, Obama leads in such formerly red states as Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada, and is competitive in a host of others. McCain is not leading in so much as a single blue state from 2004.
If and when all that changes, there's something to discuss. Until then, just put a sock in it.
“Delusions of grandeur are one thing, emslob. Delusions of deity are something else again.”
To the extent that we are part of God’s creation, we are part of God.
My “delusions of deity” are extended to you, and everyone else, as well.
"When McCain actually leads in a poll, get back to me."
Thanks for the suggestion but I think I'll keep it up.
"Obama has led every single poll by between 4 and 8 points for several months now."
That's interesting. Gallup must not be a "single" poll anymore. Their poll from two days ago show Obama up by two points and the Washington Post earlier this week shows Obama ahead by three. You might look at the trend in recent elections which shows a movement in the Republican direction the closer you get to election day. Kerry was further ahead of Bush at this point in 2004.
"Moreover, Obama leads in such formerly red states as Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada,"
Actually McCain in leading in Nevada by 3. Two of the other big states, Ohio and Virginia are only 2 point leads for Obama.
Sorry, but McCain will win Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He has more appeal to the type of voters there than the elitist Obama.
"To the extent that we are part of God’s creation, we are part of God."
OK, so, in addition to all the other fringe groups you are part of, you also believe in pantheism. Not only is this heresy and a form of idolatry but also pretty ridiculous. Sign up for a philosophy course at any college.
Judeo-Christianity believes God exists outside the physical universe and science has pretty much confirmed this.
"I know, I know. It's unfortunate for gay lunatics that I'm around."
We all remember that Reagan, in a cost cutting frenzy, forced mental patients out of our mental hospitals way back in the eighties so we understand you've been without your meds and a clean place to sleep for a long time. Apparently your incomplete therapy rendered you invisible and now, through reaction formation, you've developed a bad case of megalomania so of course you identify with the untreated non-drinking alcoholic Bush and the untreated walking PTSS case McBush. It's only natural you'd flock to kindred lost souls.
In spite of your megalomaniacal tendencies, your mixed up self is strangely unable to take credit for your imagined genius due to an apparent alias identity disorder. You poor demented thing you. "Look, you idiot," are not words of love and to not show your allies, the shower nuts in a good light.
Please, by all means, keep up the good work, demonstrating here on this blog for the good people of Montgomery County just who it is that wants to relegalize discrimination against a minority group of citizens.
McCainfused
"Let me get back to you on that."
You mean this Washington Post poll? The one with the headline that says "Obama Leads by 8 Points in Poll"? That one?
Or the Reuters poll that shows Obama leading by 7, 47-40, up from a 5 point lead in June? You miss that one, too?
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. You're not entitled to your own facts, however.
"Obama has led every single poll by between 4 and 8 points for several months now."
This is what the errant anon said.
This was wrong however. The Gallup poll from 2 days ago said Obama was up only two and the Newsweek poll earlier this week said three. It's called a downward slide.
I didn't ignore any polls. I said errant anon was errant in saying Obama has led EVERY SINGLE poll by between 4 and 8 points for several months now. The errancy is easy to see just this week and, if you go back a few months, you'll find it wasn't true then either.
He'll go down in history as a "first" like Al Landon but not like JFK.
"demonstrating here on this blog for the good people of Montgomery County just who it is that wants to relegalize discrimination against a minority group of citizens"
If you're talking about guys who dress up like girls, it's legal to discriminate against them now.
The voters haven't approved 23-07 so it is not an official law.
“Judeo-Christianity believes God exists outside the physical universe and science has pretty much confirmed this.”
Oh come hither now my pseudo-philosophical little waif.
Science, “atheist science,” which you don’t believe in to begin with, specifically because its measurements are confined to the limits of the physical universe, “has pretty much confirmed” that “God exists outside the physical universe” ???
How, pray tell, anon, has science itself managed to measure the absence of God?
CNN's politics web page has a "poll of polls" that averages five separate polls over time. Over this current month of July, the poll of polls has been as follows:
July 3: Obama 48, McCain 42
July 11: Obama 49, McCain 41
July 13: Obama 47, McCain 43
July 15: Obama 47, McCain 41
No change. You can cherry-pick your polls if you want to (it was never 15 and it's not as low as 3 now), but the fact is that Obama leads consistently. If you knew anything about how to interpret poll data, this would be obvious to you.
That's nice but you said:
"Obama has led every single poll by between 4 and 8 points for several months now."
You were wrong. Just admit and move on. You made a mistake. Don't dig a bigger hole.
What's more, historical patterns of recent elections show that this scant lead will shift McCain's way. In order to win, Obama needs to be way ahead at this point.
Obama HQ is no doubt scared to death by the fact that this adminstration is so unpopular and yet their guy has such a small lead. Their fear is justified. Obama doesn't have a chance.
Do you know the last time a Democrat was elected by more than 50% of the voters in America? That would be 1964. Before that, 1944. This, in spite of the fact that most voters are registered Democrats. Truth is, a high percentage of Democrats' most consistent supporters don't usually show up at the polls.
I guarantee you, Obama will lose.
OK, I was wrong, there are two outlier polls that show 2 and 3 point leads. The fact is that the Obama lead has been consistent over the past two to three months. That was my point, and it remains.
Speaking of errors, I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge this whopper:
the Washington Post earlier this week shows Obama ahead by three
Actually, it was 8. Stupid or lying? It's one or the other.
Another McCain Campaign Staff Shake Up: "Economic guru" and campaign co-chairman Phil Gramm resigns
What's that ten or twelve changes at the top of his campaign now? First there were all those lobbyists forced to resign and now a former GOP Senator. At this rate, there won't BE any McCain campaign left in November.
And wowie! I'm having a barrel of laughs watching Anon cling to the single poll that found a measly 2 point Obama LEAD like that means the GOP has a snowball's chance in hell in November!!
GOP = LOSERS, big time!
Sincerely,
IMPEACH THEM BOTH
"And wowie! I'm having a barrel of laughs watching Anon cling to the single poll that found a measly 2 point Obama LEAD like that means the GOP has a snowball's chance in hell in November!!"
I'm saving this one for posting on the day after the election.
The day after the election you'll be eating tons of "President Huckabee" crow.
Oh, OK. Could you give us, maybe, three or four reasons you think Americans will prefer Obama over McCain in November?
This will be good.
(I'll look really smart when I respond to her reasons)
I gave you four issues that Americans already prefer Obama over McBush by double-digits. They were identified in the poll on the front page of the Washington Post earlier this week.
Asked whom they trust more to handle the economy, 54 percent named Obama, while 35 percent said McCain. Obama also holds double-digit leads on dealing with the federal budget deficit and on immigration. On social issues such as abortion and same-sex civil unions, 56 percent prefer Obama, 32 percent McCain.
Try to keep up. It makes you look stupid when you don't.
Psychology: Will it Pay Your Bills?
It’s the Economic Stupidity, Stupid
By FRANK RICH
THE best thing to happen to John McCain was for the three network anchors to leave him in the dust this week while they chase Barack Obama on his global Lollapalooza tour. Were voters forced to actually focus on Mr. McCain’s response to our spiraling economic crisis at home, the prospect of his ascension to the Oval Office could set off a panic that would make the IndyMac Bank bust in Pasadena look as merry as the Rose Bowl.
“In a time of war,” Mr. McCain said last week, “the commander in chief doesn’t get a learning curve.” Fair enough, but he imparted this wisdom in a speech that was almost a year behind Mr. Obama in recognizing Afghanistan as the central front in the war against Al Qaeda. Given that it took the deadliest Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul since 9/11 to get Mr. McCain’s attention, you have to wonder if even General Custer’s learning curve was faster than his.
Mr. McCain still doesn’t understand that we can’t send troops to Afghanistan unless they’re shifted from Iraq. But simple math, to put it charitably, has never been his forte. When it comes to the central front of American anxiety — the economy — his learning curve has flat-lined.
In 2000, he told an interviewer that he would make up for his lack of attention to “those issues.” As he entered the 2008 campaign, Mr. McCain was still saying the same, vowing to read “Greenspan’s book” as a tutorial. Last weekend, the resolutely analog candidate told The New York Times he is at last starting to learn how “to get online myself.” Perhaps he’ll retire his abacus by Election Day.
Mr. McCain’s fiscal ineptitude has received so little scrutiny in some press quarters that his chief economic adviser, the former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, got a free pass until the moment he self-immolated on video by whining about “a nation of whiners.” The McCain-Gramm bond, dating back 15 years, is more scandalous than Mr. Obama’s connection with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Mr. McCain has been so dependent on Mr. Gramm for economic policy that he sent him to newspaper editorial board meetings, no doubt to correct the candidate’s numbers much as Joe Lieberman cleans up after his confusions of Sunni and Shia.
Just two weeks before publicly sharing his thoughts about America’s “mental recession,” Mr. Gramm laid out equally incendiary views in a Wall Street Journal profile that portrayed him as “almost certainly” the McCain choice for Treasury secretary. Mr. Gramm said that the former chief executive of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, was “probably the most exploited worker in American history” since he received only a $158 million pay package rather than the “billions” he deserved for his success in growing Southwestern Bell.
But no one in the news media seemed to notice Mr. Gramm’s naked expression of the mind-set he’d bring to a McCain White House. And few journalists have vetted the presumptive Treasury secretary’s post-Senate history as an executive at UBS. The stock of that banking giant has lost 70 percent of its value in a year after its reckless adventures in the subprime lending market. It’s now fending off federal investigation for helping the megarich avoid taxes.
Mr. McCain made a big show of banishing Mr. Gramm after his whining “gaffe,” but it’s surely at most a temporary suspension. When the candidate said back in January that there’s nobody he knows who is stronger on economic issues than his old Senate pal, he was telling the truth. Left to his own devices — or those of his new No. 1 economic surrogate, Carly Fiorina — Mr. McCain is clueless. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, a supporter, said that Mr. McCain’s latest panacea for high gas prices, offshore drilling, is snake oil — and then announced his availability to serve as energy czar in an Obama administration.
The term flip-flopping doesn’t do justice to Mr. McCain’s self-contradictory economic pronouncements because that implies there’s some rational, if hypocritical, logic at work. What he serves up instead is plain old incoherence, as if he were compulsively consulting one of those old Magic 8 Balls. In a single 24-hour period in April, Mr. McCain went from saying there’s been “great economic progress” during the Bush presidency to saying “Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago.” He reversed his initial condemnation of mortgage bailouts in just two weeks.
In February Mr. McCain said he would balance the federal budget by the end of his first term even while extending the gargantuan Bush tax cuts. In April he said he’d accomplish this by the end of his second term. In July he’s again saying he’ll do it in his first term. Why not just say he’ll do it on Inauguration Day? It really doesn’t matter since he’s never supplied real numbers that would give this promise even a patina of credibility.
Mr. McCain’s plan for Social Security reform is “along the lines that President Bush proposed.” Or so he said in March. He came out against such “privatization” in June (though his policy descriptions still support it). Last week he indicated he isn’t completely clear on what Social Security does. He called the program’s premise — young taxpayers foot the bill for their elders (including him) — an “absolute disgrace.”
Given that Mr. McCain’s sole private-sector job was a fleeting stint in public relations at his father-in-law’s beer distributorship, he comes by his economic ignorance honestly. But there’s no A team aboard the Straight Talk Express to fill him in. His campaign economist, the former Bush adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, could be found in the June 5 issue of American Banker suggesting even at that late date that we still don’t know “the depth of the housing crisis” and proposing that “monitoring is the right thing to do in these circumstances.”
Ms. Fiorina, the ubiquitous new public face of McCain economic policy, adds nothing to the mix beyond her incessant display of corporate jargon, from “trend lines” to “start-ups.” Before she was fired at Hewlett-Packard, its stock had declined 50 percent during her five-plus years in charge. She missed earning projections — by 23 percent in one quarter — much as she now misrepresents both the Obama and McCain records. This month she said Mr. McCain wanted to require insurance plans to cover birth control medications along with Viagra, when in fact he had voted against it.
Ms. Fiorina received a $42 million payout (half in cash) from H.P., according to a shareholders’ subsequent lawsuit. With this inspiring résumé, she now aspires to be Mr. McCain’s running mate. So does the irrepressible Mitt Romney, who actually was a business whiz before serving as Massachusetts’s governor. Beltway wisdom has it that the addition of such a corporate star will remedy Mr. McCain’s fiscal flatulence.
But Mr. Romney, while more plausible than Ms. Fiorina, is hardly what America wants at this desperate time. His leveraged buyout dealings as co-founder of Bain Capital induced plant closings, mass layoffs and outsourcing. If Mr. McCain truly intends to “put our country’s interests” above politics and reach across the aisle to move the nation forward, as he constantly tells us, why not go for a vice president who’s the very best fit for the huge challenges at hand?
The obvious choice would be Michael Bloomberg — who, as a former Republican turned independent, would necessitate that Mr. McCain reach only halfway across the aisle, and to someone who is his friend rather than a vanquished rival he is learning to tolerate.
Romney vs. Bloomberg is not a close contest. Bloomberg L.P. has roughly three times the revenues and employees of Bain & Company, where Mr. Romney ultimately served as chief executive. Mr. Romney rescued the Salt Lake City Olympics while running it in 2002, but Mayor Bloomberg revitalized New York, the nation’s largest metropolis, after the most devastating attack in our history. The city he manages has more than twice the budget of Mr. Romney’s state.
Yes, Mr. Bloomberg is a closet Democrat and an alpha dog who doesn’t want to be a second banana. And his views on gay civil rights and abortion would roil the G.O.P. base. But Mr. Romney shared some of those same views before he flip-flopped, and besides, these are not ordinary times. Millions of Americans are losing their homes and jobs. Whole industries are going belly up. The national crisis at hand, not yesterday’s culture wars, should drive the vice-presidential pick.
Mr. McCain reminds us every day how principled he is. That presumably means he’d risk a revolt by his party’s dwindling agents of intolerance and do everything in his power to persuade Mr. Bloomberg to join his ticket in the spirit of patriotic sacrifice. The politics could be advantageous too. A Bloomberg surprise could impress independents and keep the television audience tuned in to a G.O.P. convention that will unfold in the shadow of Mr. Obama’s address to 75,000 screaming fans in Denver.
But this is fantasy political baseball, not reality. Mr. McCain, sad to say, hung up his old maverick’s spurs the day he embraced the Bush tax cuts he had once opposed as “too tilted to the wealthy.” And Mr. Bloomberg? It’s hard to picture a titan who built his empire on computer terminals investing any capital, political or otherwise, in a chief executive who is still learning how to do, as Mr. McCain puts it, “a Google.”
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