The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of the United States testified last week, on July 17, that difficult times in terms of the American economy would be with us for a long time to come. In his play Richard III, William Shakespeare had a line that referred to the “winter of our discontent.” If Chairman Bernake is to be believed, and I believe him wholeheartedly, we are going to have several winters, springs, summers, and falls of discontent ahead of us. As we face this melancholy gloom, the American people can look forward to one source of laughter. That laughter comes from the buffoonery of our politicians. Here is just a small sample that has occurred in this summer of 2008, a period of great discontent.
The cast of our buffoons is led by our beloved president, Mr. Bush. When our beloved president speaks extemporaneously, he usually invokes his cowboy mode of speaking. Everybody knows that cowboys do not put “g”s on the end of words where it is appropriate. And so it was that Mr. Bush appeared on July 18 in the Rose Garden of the White House to reassure the American people that everything was going swimmingly, or perhaps to use a Texas expression, peachy keen. The Duke of Crawford pronounced the American economy to be in good shape. He said that unemployment numbers were low and that there were “a lot of people workin’.” When George Bush tells you that the American economy is going great guns in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary, he and his cowboy talk can be tuned out almost immediately. But nonetheless, the President of the United States, in contradiction to Chairman Bernake, said that our economy is steaming right along and every citizen should be greatly pleased. You can’t make this stuff up unless you happen to be the President of the United States in the year 2008.
A second example of things that are hard to make up occurred when former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas was interviewed by The Washington Times. The Washington Times is a right-wing neocon publication which is owned by the fabulously wealthy Reverend Moon, who has persuaded his followers that he is some sort of a god. I believe that Reverend Moon is just another Korean shyster who may in the end induce his followers to drink Kool-Aid in the manner of the Reverend Jim Jones. Whether Phil Gramm asked to be interviewed by The Times or whether The Times sought out Senator Gramm, it makes very little difference. The fact of the matter is that during his three terms as a senator from Texas, Gramm became the powerful chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. He was known widely as “the senator from Enron.” He used his terms in the Senate Banking Committee to lift restrictions on people who sought to borrow money. Because the restrictions on borrowing money were few and far between after Senator Gramm was finished, we now have the subprime mortgage crisis. Phil Gramm used his time in the Senate to lay the groundwork for the torpedoing of the American economy. That was yesterday. In the interview with The Washington Times, the former senator from Texas told all of us that we were “a nation of whiners.” In addition he diagnosed our problem as a psychological recession. Mr. Gramm and his cohorts never use the word “depression.” They say we are suffering from a recession, even if it is only a psychological one.
And so it is that the man who has lost his job and is suffering a foreclosure of his house will stand on the curb as his belongings are piled up there to be carted away. Interestingly, Mr. Bush in his Rose Garden appearance to cheer us all up also likewise failed to recognize home foreclosures and the fact that banks are failing right and left. Please remember that you should not give in to a psychological recession and, if you do, you will become just another member of the American nation of whiners.
Phil Gramm has been under a rock and always looked like a lizard as he peered forward, and has been unnoticed now for several years. However, when John McCain elected to run for the presidency, Senator Gramm became his chief economic advisor and was the co-chairman of his campaign. When the remarks about a nation of whiners and the psychological recession appeared in print, Senator McCain said that Phil Gramm did not speak for him. McCain said that he spoke for himself. In other words, John McCain chopped Phil Gramm’s legs off at the knees. While his departure as co-chairman of the campaign is reasonably clear, it is not obvious that Gramm has relinquished his title as chief economic advisor to Senator McCain. I realize that this is a bizarre set of facts but it again goes to show that this stuff simply can not be made up.
As the week drew to a close, two major changes in the policy of the Bush administration came to light. The first one involves our refusal over more than five years of warfare with Iraq to name a timetable for our departure. Recently the prime minister of Iraq has been beating the drums and asking us to please leave. When it was thought that the Iraqis had to have our presence, the Bush administration said that as soon as the Iraqis told us to leave we would leave. But in fact it was our belief that that day would never come. Now, however, that day has come and the Iraqis have asked us to please leave.
Apparently the prime minister of Iraq and the Duke of Crawford had a discussion during which it was clear that the Iraqis meant business this time. And so, as the week drew to a close, there was an announcement from the White House that was confusing in the extreme. Note that the announcement came from “a source in the White House” rather than a Rose Garden announcement. With respect to our leaving Iraq, it is now the official position of the Bush administration that our troops will leave as “time horizons for aspirational goals.” Your old essayist who has been praised or condemned as simply a wordsmith is completely at sea on the phrase “time horizons for aspirational goals.”
To settle this matter, I went to the train station in this town to ask the ticket clerk what “time horizons for aspirational goals” meant. The ticket clerk asked me to leave before he called the insane asylum. I then stood out by the tracks and as the next train pulled in, I asked the conductor what “time horizons for aspirational goals” would be involved in the arrival of this train in New York City. The conductor said that there were no such things and that if I wanted to go to New York, I had better get aboard the train as it was leaving immediately. But as you can see, it is difficult to make this stuff up. Clearly it just happens.
Finally, you will recall that for several years the Bush administration has attempted to isolate the Iranians. We do not have an embassy in Teheran and our diplomatic efforts consist of Condoleezza Rice telling the Iranians that “We do not wish to talk to you.” Our refusal to talk for no reason at all is in keeping with an ancient Irish children’s song. The song goes something like this:

It’s not because you’re dirty,
It’s not because you’re clean,
It’s just because your family
Eats margarine.

That little children’s song seems to make as much sense as our State Department has exhibited in the last several years.
There was a meeting in Geneva this past weekend wherein the Europeans invited the Iranians to discuss their enrichment of uranium. Basically the Europeans said, “If you will quit enriching uranium, we will reward you. If you keep on doing that, you will face more sanctions.” In a startling reversal of form, the United States agreed to send William Burns, the third-ranking member of our State Department, to attend the meeting. But we announced that Mr. Burns was under strict instructions not to discuss any matters of substance with the Iranian delegate. At this writing, it is not clear whether Mr. Burns was free to discuss the weather in the two capitals. But he must have sat there like a bump on a log while the six European nations had a discussion with the delegate from Iran. But our man stood by the isolation of the Iranians and said nothing. Can any sane man, woman, or child imagine traveling 3,500 miles to Geneva with instructions to say nothing? Perhaps Mr. Burns monitored the meeting but he was allowed to say nothing to the Iranians. Ladies and gentlemen who read these essays: I am an old labor negotiator. I can not imagine anything more idiotic than sending the third-ranking member of the State Department 3,500 miles to sit in a meeting and be under instructions to avoid speaking to the Iranian delegate. This is idiocy at its highest level and once again I submit that you just can’t make this stuff up.
Plainly there was Senator Larry Craig from Idaho again intruding on us. Senator Craig called a news conference to denounce the suppliers of crude oil to this country. Those suppliers are generally Arabs, together with the Persians. The climax to Senator Craig’s performance was reached when he said, “We can’t let them jerk us around at the end of a gas nozzle.” Can you imagine Larry Craig, who was arrested for homosexual activities in a Minneapolis airport restroom, saying that we can’t let those people “jerk us around?” If I may say so, coming from Larry Craig this is about as good as it gets and it proves once more that this stuff can not be made up.
Well, there you have several examples of political buffoonery coming to the American people to reward them with a laugh during the hard times that Chairman Bernake has predicted. It seems to me that in the week starting with July 13, our politicians have outdone themselves when it comes to political buffoonery. But in the end, I appreciate their efforts because I was one inch away from becoming another American whiner. If Bush and Craig have rescued me from that fate, I can only say that I am truly grateful.
E. E. CARR
July 24, 2008
Essay 329
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Kevin’s commentary: I’m sure Larry Craig’s comment was just misunderstood. His objection was not to being jerked around, but rather that he was having to do so at the length of a gas nozzle. If only the gas problem could be resolved, he might be jerked around directly.
I forget how good the country has it sometimes. Essays about Phil Gramm help me remember to be thankful for what we collectively no longer have to deal with.
As an update on Ezra’s Essays, I’m setting a potential temporal roughly diagonal horizon objective of “by 2015” for the aspirational goal achievement deadline for publishing.