Beyond Election Day

By BOB HERBERT

Conservative commentators had a lot of fun mocking Barack Obama’s use of the phrase, “the fierce urgency of now.”

Noting that it had originated with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Obama made it a cornerstone of his early campaign speeches.

Conservatives kicked the phrase around like a soccer ball. “The fierce urgency of now,” they would say, giggling. What does it mean?

Well, if your house is on fire and your family is still inside, that’s an example of the fierce urgency of now.

Something like that is the case in the United States right now as Americans go to the polls in what is probably the most important presidential election since World War II. A mind-boggling series of crises is threatening not just the short-term future but the very viability of the nation.

The economy is sinking into quicksand. The financial sector, guardian of the nation’s wealth, is leaning on the crutch of a trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout. The giant auto companies — for decades the high-powered, gas-guzzling, exhaust-spewing pride of American industry — are on life support.

As the holiday shopping season approaches, the nation is hemorrhaging jobs, the value of the family home has plunged, retirement plans are shrinking like ice cubes on a hot stove and economists are telling us the recession has only just begun.

It’s in that atmosphere that voters today will be choosing between the crisis-management skills of Senator Obama, who has enlisted Joe Biden as aide-de-camp, and those of Senator John McCain, who is riding to the rescue with Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber in tow.

As important as this choice has become, the election is just a small first step. What Americans really have to decide is what kind of country they want.

Right now the United States is a country in which wealth is funneled, absurdly, from the bottom to the top. The richest 1 percent of Americans now holds close to 40 percent of all the wealth in the nation and maintains an iron grip on the levers of government power.

This is not only unfair, but self-defeating. The U.S. cannot thrive with its fabulous wealth concentrated at the top and the middle class on its knees. (No one even bothers to talk about the poor anymore.) How to correct this imbalance is one of the biggest questions facing the country.

The U.S. is also a country in which blissful ignorance is celebrated, and intellectual excellence (the key to 21st century advancement) is not just given short shrift, but is ridiculed. Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are cultural icons. The average American watches television a mind-numbing 4 1/2 hours a day.

At the same time, our public school system is plagued with some of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world. Math and science? Forget about it. Too tough for these TV watchers, or too boring, or whatever.

“When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad,” said Bill Gates, “I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”

The point here is that as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the United States is in deep, deep trouble. Yet instead of looking for creative, 21st-century solutions to these enormous problems, too many of our so-called leaders are behaving like clowns, or worse — spouting garbage in the public sphere that hearkens back to the 1940s and ’50s.

Thoughtful, well-educated men and women are denounced as elites, and thus the enemies of ordinary Americans. Attempts to restore a semblance of fiscal sanity to a government that has been looted with an efficiency that would have been envied by the mob, are derided as subversive — the work of socialists, Marxists, Communists.

In 2008!

In North Carolina, Senator Elizabeth Dole, a conservative Republican, is in a tough fight for re-election against a Democratic state senator, Kay Hagan. So Ms. Dole ran a television ad that showed a close-up of Ms. Hagan’s face while the voice of a different woman asserts, “There is no God!”

Americans have to decide if they want a country that tolerates this kind of debased, backward behavior. Or if they want a country that aspires to true greatness — a country that stands for more than the mere rhetoric of equality, freedom, opportunity and justice.

That decision will require more than casting a vote in one presidential election. It will require a great deal of reflective thought and hard work by a committed citizenry. The great promise of America hinges on a government that works, openly and honestly, for the broad interests of the American people, as opposed to the narrow benefit of the favored, wealthy few.

By all means, vote today. But that is just the first step toward meaningful change.

Fact Check: Palin's Alaska spreads its wealth

Note from Greetings: So.. again by their own definition (McCain and Palin), are McCain and Palin the real socialists? McCain with his interest in corporate welfare for the wealthy in their tax breaks and the bailing out of Wall Street with government funds? And Palin, who did, indeed, spread the wealth around when she was in charge in Alaska.

By RITA BEAMISH – AP

Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin summon antidemocratic images of a communist state to attack Democrat Barack Obama's tax plan and his comment about spreading the wealth around. But in her home state, Palin embraces Alaska's own version of doing just that.

Palin and McCain seized on a comment Obama made to Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher, who asked about his tax plans.

Obama wants to raise taxes on families earning $250,000 to pay for cutting taxes for the 95 percent of workers and their families making less than $200,000. "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," he told Wurzelbacher.

McCain said that sounds "a lot like socialism" to many Americans. Palin has derided the Illinois senator as "Barack the Wealth Spreader."

But in Alaska, Palin is the envy of governors nationwide for the annual checks the state doles out to nearly every resident, representing their share of the revenues from the state's oil riches. She boosted those checks this year by raising taxes on oil.

McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said Thursday that spreading wealth through Obama's tax plan and doing it through Alaska's oil-profit distribution are not comparable because Alaska requires the state's resource wealth to be shared with residents, but it's not taxing personal income.

"It's how the revenue is shared between the oil companies and the state."

A look at Palin's and McCain's comments and the record in Alaska:

THE SPIN:

"Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth. Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic," Palin told a crowd in Roswell, N.M., and elsewhere. "But Joe the Plumber and Ed the Dairyman, I believe they think it sounds more like socialism.

"Friends, now is no time to experiment with socialism."

In Ohio, she asked, "Are there any Joe the Plumbers in the house?" To cheers, she said, "It doesn't sound like you're supporting Barack the Wealth Spreader."

McCain told a radio audience that Obama's plan "would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington."

"Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway."

THE FACTS:

In Alaska, residents pay no income tax or state sales tax. They receive a yearly dividend check from a $30 billion state investment account built largely from royalties on its oil. When home fuel and gas costs soared last year, Palin raised taxes on big oil and used some of the money to boost residents' checks by $1,200. Thus every eligible man, woman and child got a record $3,269 this fall.

She also suspended the 8-cent tax on gas.

"We can afford to share resource wealth with Alaskans and to temporarily suspend the state fuel tax," she said at the time.

Much as Obama explains his tax hike on the rich as a way to help people who are struggling, Palin's statement talked about the energy costs burdening Alaskans:

"While the unique fiscal circumstances the state finds itself in at the end of this fiscal year warrant a special one-time payment to share some of the state's wealth, the payment comes at a time when Alaskans are facing rising energy prices. High prices for oil are a double-edged sword for Alaskans. While public coffers fill, prices for heating fuel and gasoline have skyrocketed over the last six months and are now running into the $5- to $9-a-gallon range for heating fuel and gasoline across several areas of the state."

In an interview with The New Yorker last summer Palin explained that she would make demands of a new gas pipeline "to maximize benefits for Alaskans":

"And Alaska we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."

The "Joe the Plumber" Story Hits an Amazing New Low

Ed. Note: So.. Joe the Plumber doesn't have a plumbers' license, and has tax liens on his business. He only makes $40,000/year and would benefit from Obama's tax plan much more than McCain's.. was already on right wing talk radio, and... although not related.. has the same name as Charles Keating's son-in-law. And he didn't want to buy the business... which was not worth $250,000, the magical mark, but much less.

Now perhaps Senator McCain didn't know that... but you'd think a Presidential candidate would check. Or maybe he did. And how opportune of Joe to show up at an Obama rally before going on the record for McCain. Ya think?

FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST

Just when you didn't think things could get worse for John McCain -- they go in the toilet.

Literally.

So, you remember Joe the Plumber, who John McCain kept relentlessly bringing up. And up. The apparently undecided plumber who had complained to Barack Obama that he couldn't buy his own plumbing company because he'd have to pay 3% more in taxes. The plumber who John McCain lauded as an Everyman while oddly proclaiming "Congratulations! You're rich!" in the midst of a disastrous recession. The fellow who said that Barack Obama "tap dances better than Sammy Davis Jr."

That guy.

Well, it turns out he's the one gliding around the dance floor so much, you should expect to see him soon on "Dancing with the Stars."

You see, Joe Wurzelbacher is apparently related to Robert Wurzelbacher. Who is the son-in-law of (are you ready...?) Charles Keating!

Yes, that Charles Keating. The Charles Keating of the Keating 5 Scandal. For which John McCain was reprimanded by the United States Senate, for his involvement in attempting to illegally influence government regulators. The Charles Keating who John McCain has been trying to avoid have mentioned. So, he basically mentioned it 24 times.

(By the way, lost in all the attention paid to John McCain not getting the same career-ending censure by the Senate, as did the other four defendants - the reason for that is because he'd been in the House of Representatives at the time of his transgression. The Senate decided that they didn't have jurisdiction over him to give the same penalty. So, his career was saved.)

Anyway, back to Robert Wurzelbacher, Joe the Plumber's father. You see, Robert Wurzelbacher was an executive of American Continental Corporation, the parent company of Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings. That's the bank which caused citizens to lose their life savings and cost U.S. taxpayers $3.4 billion. As part of that scandal, Robert Wurzelbacher pleaded guilty to three counts of misapplying $14 million and served 40 months in prison.

And now, Lincoln Savings, Robert Wurzelbacher and Joe the Plumber are back with John McCain.

"Congratulations! You're rich!," indeed.

Never mind that Joe the Plumber has state tax liens files against him. As the court representative says, Joe the Plumber might not even be aware of the lien.

Never mind that Joe the Plumber says he wasn't convinced by Sen. Obama's argument. Given his background, why should he be?

Never mind that Joe the Plumber is concerned about a tax increase if his business makes over $250,000. After all, since any business has an estimated value of five times its annual profit - that means Joe's hoped-for business is valued at $1.25 million. So, either he has that in the bank or can get a loan for its value. (Assuming he can get a loan today, of course...). Though, now you see why John McCain gave Joe the Plumber a shout out, "Congratulations! You're rich!"

But then, maybe John McCain gave Joe the Plumber a shout-out because he wanted to give a boost to a friend's relative. Nice touch.

So, apparently these are the people who John McCain seems to keep palling around with.

Mind you, I thought it odd when John McCain first brought up Joe Wurzelbacher's but then never referred to his last name again. I thought perhaps he'd forgotten it. Or it was too hard to pronounce. Apparently though there was a better reason for him to quit saying the name "Wurzelbacher" 24 times. If only Sen. McCain (R-AZ) had remembered the pesky Tivo, where you can rewind.

Now, in fairness, John McCain might not have known than Joe Wurzelbacher was from that same Wurzelbacher family. He might have thought it was just some regular Wurzelbacher. And who knows, maybe they're not even related?

But never mind all of that. This is an election, and what matters is the votes. And in the end, if John McCain wants the vote of Joe the Plumber, then he'll likely get it. That was his point all night, after all. Of course, he might not getting the votes of many other plumbers.

The United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters has endorsed Barack Obama.

"Obama will help us keep existing jobs and work to develop new, higher paying jobs here in America, reform our health care system, fix our ailing schools and make sure that the pensions of our retirees are safe," the UAPP said.

By the way, as long as we're on the matter of John McCain forgetting the name of Joe Wurzelbacher and who he's related to. There's one other name he forgot at the debate.

Barack Obama.

At the end of the evening, Mr. Obama began his final statement by thanking Sen. McCain and "Bob for moderating." When it was John McCain's time, he too thanked Bob Schieffer by name, then turned to Sen. Obama, looked at him, hesitated briefly, and then sayd, "And you."

At least he didn't say "Joe Wurzelbacher."

For the 25th time.