Meals From The Marketplace

            I have just about had my fill of lying politicians. 

            I wrote that sentence in the immediate aftermath of the Anthony Weiner press conference earlier this week, wherein he admitted he had lied repeatedly about the Twitter photo of his genitalia that he claimed he hadn’t but finally admitted he had sent to a young woman he had been twittering with.  (That sounds just how I want it to sound, whether the verb is grammatically correct or not.)

            I’m sick of politicians who lie, and the fact that this one’s politics are in line with my own doesn’t make it any less sickening.  Weiner is as pathetic in this regard as all the rest.  When it comes to personal integrity, they all stink (all, here, meaning those that lie, which probably includes the great majority of them).

            I probably sound like some still-wet-behind-the-ears college kid who’s never seen the dark side of the reality that our democracy is, but in fact, I’m quite the opposite.  I’ve worked as a paid campaign consultant, toiled in the Legislature as a policy analyst, lobbied for a major trade association, and followed politics almost as closely as I follow baseball for almost 50 years.

            But enough is enough.  Lying cannot be acceptable conduct in those who seek to represent and lead their constituents, and it is time to identify the lies and indict those who make them.

            Like so many others before him, Weiner accepted “full responsibility” for his actions in one breath, and in the very next declared that he would not resign, which raises what should be an obvious question:  Just what is their definition of responsibility?  In my book it certainly means owning up to the transgression, but it also means bearing the consequences “like a man,” as used to be the fashionable term.

            Weiner more or less owned up.  He acknowledged some of what he had done, and sidestepped/avoided a lot, too.  What, for example, was he doing with the “six or so” women he twittered with?  Were any underage?  Did he initiate the twittering or did they?  Does he have a psychological problem that needs counseling?  Did he violate any laws or rules of the House?  And why after ten days of lying was he finally coming clean now?

            All in all, his performance in the lengthy press conference he submitted himself to, so far as owning up is concerned, probably merits a C+, at least compared to similar press conferences by others caught with their, er, pants down.

            But in the bearing the consequences department, Weiner gets an F.  When you are elected to Congress, you can’t twitter photographs of your penis to young women.  It doesn’t matter that it isn’t a crime.  It matters that you are serving the people of your district and of the nation.  And when you engage in that conduct, let alone lie about it, you forfeit your right to hold that office. 

            At least, that is the way a “man” would understand and accept the consequences of that kind of action.

            But, Mr. Weiner, like so many before him, wants to have it both ways.  He wants to accept responsibility and then be immediately forgiven, without even asking to be forgiven.  It’s an interesting sense of integrity, which is another word these folks don’t really seem to understand.

            But in American politics, there are offensive lies and there are despicable lies.  The Weiner lies (and the conduct he attempted to cover up) are offensive, especially with respect to the extent to which he pressed them to the entire country for over a week.   But they do not reach the same degree of repugnance as the lies that politicians tell that directly affect the course of our nation. 

            In other words, let’s keep things in perspective.  Weiner, with his twittering, his apparent psychological issues, the likely troubles in his marriage, and his public humiliation and shame, is just a pathetic human being who has disgraced himself and his office.  But nothing he has done is adversely affecting the country in a significant way.

            The kinds of lies that are far worse, that are not just offensive but are despicable, are those that our politicians tell us in furtherance of their political or ideological pursuits. 

            I’m speaking here of the kind of lies that, for example, claim that a war must be initiated against a foreign country because that country is a threat to the United States, when in fact the country is no threat at all.  Lies like those that claim that the war will pay for itself, when instead it will end up costing the nation nearly a trillion dollars.  

            I’m speaking of lies that claim that the entitlement programs that are a lifeline for many of the nation’s seniors cannot be sustained and that they must, therefore, be dismantled, even though they can be sustained if taxes on the wealthiest are raised. 

            Lies that claim raising taxes will destroy the economy, when the goal is really to “starve the beast” of New Deal and Great Society programs.  Or lies that assert that increasing marginal tax rates even to the level they were at before the wars were started would lead to higher unemployment and a double-dip recession, even though those same tax rates, when they were in effect, coincided with the longest sustained economic growth the country had enjoyed in fifty years. 

            I’m referring to lies that claim that more effective government regulation of the financial industry is not necessary even though lax regulation led to the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.  Or lies that now claim that the country needs less regulation, not more, even as the same financial industry continues to engage in the same shenanigans that led to the economic collapse just three years ago.

            I’m talking about lies that claim a health care reform law is socialistic, when it does not nationalize any industry and in fact increases the profitability of the nation’s insurance industries.  Or that claim that a bailout of the auto industry is socialistic, when it instead saves that industry and returns it to profitability at no net cost to the government.

            Those kinds of lies are harder to identify than the offensive lies Anthony Weiner told, because they are said in the guise of legitimate political discourse.  They are cloaked with the shield of intelligence reports or empirical studies or are said to be nothing more than personal opinion.

            But stripped of all the niceties of “free speech,” they are lies, because the speakers know that they are said to cover the truth.

            A democracy like the one we in the United States have can withstand the lies of those of its public servants who are imperfect stewards of their personal lives.  It can even survive the lies those seeking elective office tell to persuade voters to cast their votes for them. 

            But when those public servants lie about the policies and laws they are or are not enacting, when they lie about the economic and foreign policy decisions they are implementing, when they lie to further their own political or ideological pursuits, then their lies are beyond offensive.  They are despicable, and they must be exposed as the threat to the democracy that they are.

            My wife and I just returned from a week’s vacation in Tahoe Vista, which is one of the many little towns that are spread across the northern side of Lake Tahoe, the large lake that divides parts of California and Nevada.  The lake, for those unfamiliar with this part of the world, is nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains and is home of some of the most gorgeous vistas in the country (if not the world).

            Back in January, when we planned this respite, we thought we’d be able to enjoy a week of golf in the beauty of northern California’s spring.  We were, after all, going to be there for the week leading up to Memorial Day, which, in Sacramento, often sees daytime high temperatures approaching 100 degrees.

            Imagine our surprise then, when we found ourselves playing golf in a mini-snowstorm on the last day of our stay.  Not that that particular weather was all that different from what we had experienced earlier in the week.  Indeed, we rarely saw the sun and never enjoyed temperatures as high as 60 degrees (except for the days we spent in Reno, which were a little warmer).

            But as surprising as that weather was, it pales in comparison to what we found waiting for us when we returned.  Sacramento is still trying to shake the vestiges of winter, with temperatures still topping in the low 70s and dropping as low as 45 at night.  And, we are still getting measurable precipitation as we usher in the month of June.  Global warming?  Not here.  At least, not this year.

            But don’t get me wrong.  I’m not complaining.  I mean a little chill in the air and some always welcome, if unexpected, rainfall are hardly grounds for a major harangue, especially with the true tragedies that have befallen many parts of the Midwest, where tornados and floods have devastated communities and destroyed individual lives over the past month or so.  That kind of weather, predictable though it may be, we can all do without.

            But the weather we are having in this part of the world is highly unusual, even if we do return to a more normal pattern in the weeks to come.  (Normal for us, by the way, would be constant sunshine with hardly a cloud to be seen from Memorial Day until Labor Day and lots of heat along with it.)

            I imagine it won’t be long before some Fox News pundit points to the odd weather we are having as “proof” that global warming is a myth or a liberal plot to revolutionize the economy.  If they don’t pick up on that theme, it will only be because Sacramento is not on their radar screen.  That’s how unusual this weather pattern is.

            But, of course, the vagaries of one season in terms of weather have nothing to do with the change in the world’s climate that is undoubtedly occurring.  That one winter produces violent snowfalls in one part of the country, or that one spring is unusually cool and wet in another, does not prove anything in terms of whether the planet is getting warmer.

            The evidence on that point is global, not local, and know-it-alls who point to local patterns are merely exposing their ignorance, if not their ideological bias.

            The debate, if there is to be one, shouldn’t be about whether the change is occurring but what, if anything, we, as the inhabitants of the planet, should do about it.

            And on that point, I readily confess that I don’t know the answer.  I am not a scientist, and scientists are whom we should be listening to, first and foremost, on this subject.  The world’s temperature is a measurable, scientific fact.  It isn’t conjecture that major ice caps are melting at an alarming rate or that sea levels are rising precipitously.  These things are happening.  They are beyond dispute.

            The first serious question we should be asking is what these things portend for the future of the planet.  What kind of life will they provide?  Will they enhance human existence or detract from it?  Will they improve the living conditions for other species or make their existence more tenuous?

            To get answers to those questions, we should listen to those who have expertise on the subject, to wit, the scientists who spend their professional lives studying these matters.

            And, assuming their answers are that the changes are deleterious and undesirable, we should listen to them further to learn what is causing these changes and what might be done to reverse them or impede their further development. 

            And, where the scientists disagree, as can occur in scientific study, we should look to their credentials, to what organizations are paying for their studies, to how many line up on one side or the other of the issue, and to which of them offer the more plausible reasons (again, scientifically based) for their conclusions.

            From all I have read and studied from these experts, the vast majority (by a scale of something like 98 to 2) hold that climate change is real, that it portends ill for the future of the planet and its inhabitants, and that it can be impeded, if not reversed, by significantly reducing the various pollutants we are putting into the atmosphere.  And, I would add that the 98 appear to have no axe to grind in the debate (that is, they don’t owe any allegiance to outside interests), while the 2 are usually funded by institutions that are supported by economic interests that would suffer if the proposed remedies were enacted.

            Now I readily admit that scientists are not policy makers.  In our democratic system, we elect individuals whom we trust to make the decisions necessary for our (the nation’s, the world’s) well being.  Those individuals must consider a vast array of factors in reaching the decisions we rely on them to make.

            But if they deny the validity of scientific study and opinion, if, indeed, they look instead to the unusual weather pattern Sacramento is having this spring as “evidence,” then they are betraying their public trust.