Spending on the Homeland...

Have you ever asked yourself this question, "How can we always manage to come up with money to wage war, but can never find money to educate children, or provide health care?" I know I've asked this question quite a few times over the course of my life, and having never received an answer, I can only presume it is because war is always eminently important and the other things are not. The thing is though, we don't/didn't really have the money for war, but we thought it was important enough that if we had to borrow it, so be it. It occurred to me today that amongst all the Republican and Media grandstanding surrounding the stimulus bill, we're finally elevating some of the "others" to a level of importance that they haven't been at for years. Infrastructure, police, firefighters, health care, education, these things are all needed, and right now they are all REALLY needed. I don't know if this package is the answer to our nation's economic crisis, but if we are "wasting" money, at least it's on the homeland this time.

Altruism v. Philanthropy

In my research I come across the words altruism and philanthropy quite a bit. Until recently I hadn't given much thought to these words, assuming they were essentially perfect substitutes. Not that this post is particularly eye-opening or profound, but upon looking the terms up it becomes pretty apparent that altruism, or altruistic behavior is a stronger proposition than philanthropic behavior.

altruism - unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.

philanthropy - goodwill to fellowmen ; especially : active effort to promote human welfare.

In other words, while both are concerned with welfare, one can act in a philanthropic manner as motivated through selfishness, whereas altruism inherently precludes such behavior. Just something to think about the next time you hear someone being lauded as a philanthropist. Money is good, but motives are important...

Morning "No"

I've been watching Morning Joe on MSNBC for a while now. Joe Scarborough, in general, is a pretty smart guy, but he continues, for whatever reason to let his partisanship get in the way of facts and logic. Over the past few weeks he has been a fan of the following line (I don't have the exact quote, but it goes something like this): "Barack Obama has the thinnest resume of anyone ever running for U.S. president. Why is his experience as a community organizer, state senator, and U.S. senator for two years anymore relevant than a mayor and a governor?" He usually says this in a condescending way, in which he tries to make the argument that sarah palin. (yes, the period is there on purpose) and Barack Obama have the same experience, so how could you favor one over the other? Leaving aside his butchering of Obama's resume (he leaves out the fact that he was editor of the Harvard Law Review, a civil rights lawyer, and a constitutional law professor at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country), the case for Obama was never about experience, it's always been about good judgment, temperament, and intellect. Of the aforementioned sarah palin his demonstrated none, and John McCain has only demonstrated the latter to varying degrees. If it were only about experience, and it is valuable to a certain extent, Obama would never have been the Democratic nominee. Of course, this argument would be too easy to make, and so no one on the show has ever put that rebuttal to Joe. Mika has tried, but she always does it in such a way that makes her look as though she's not sure of it. Just once, I would like Mika to ask, "Joe, name for me one foreign policy view that sarah palin has expressed other than, 'I love Israel'."

On another note, I'm glad Lawrence O'Donnell is there to keep things somewhat sane. A great exchange occurred this morning in which he absolutely decimated former Secretary of State Eagleburger. He allows the secretary to rant and rave about how important experience is in foriegn policy, and that we can't trust Barack the novice, and then Lawerence poses the following, pretty simple, question to him:

"Secretary, it goes without argument that a U.S. Senator has more foreign policy experience than any U.S. governor, by virtue of their jobs. If that is the case, why did you feel it was ok to support the candidacies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush?"

Of course the secretary had no response for this that didn't require him to completely get rid of the experience argument he had just spent 8 minutes making a case for. Very well played.

UPDATE: Video from the exchange, here.

The Mailbag

I stumbled across this today (3rd question at the bottom). After a classic Michigan comeback, I'm looking forward to a great month of football this October.

Palin's Struggles...

What's become very apparent is that Palin is not ready for much of anything, let alone the Vice Presidency. Watching the Couric interview I almost feel bad for her, she's way out of her league. The more you watch, the more you realize that she's not even a good surrogate, let alone a good candidate.

The Maverick Counter

John McCain's insecurity in dealing with the economy over the past two weeks has been apparent. Now, in a pretty savvy political move, he is attempting to neutralize this by calling for a suspension to his campaign, and a return to Washington to help put together a bailout plan. As transparent a gimmick as this is, I think it's a smart political move. Ezra Klein eviscerates this ploy, and rightfully so. Following up on his analysis, for better or worse the ball is now in Obama's court. My advice to the Obama campaign (as if they care), would be to reject the call for the debate cancellation, stressing the importance of a national dialogue on the economic issues, and offer to McCain that the debate be repositioned from one on foreign policy to one on the economy. This not only undercuts the McCain stunt, but allows Obama an opening to reposition the debate to a terrain that he is more comfortable on than McCain.

Fall

I realize I'm a day late, but I just want to take a moment out to celebrate the arrival of unarguably the best season. Enjoy!