When Fiction Meets Reality

This one's a little bit dated -- sorry -- but last week Maureen Dowd chose to address the question on every American's mind: OMG, if a fictional Democratic president from a popular TV show could have a conversation with the non-fictional Democratic nominee for president, what would they talk about?

She even enlisted Aaron Sorkin to write it. Which is actually kind of funny, that a woman who considers herself a trailblazer for female op-ed columnists, and who wrote this book, got her ex-boyfriend to write her column.

Helpfully, in the middle of this column, Dowd/Sorkin points out (twice!) that Bartlet's solutions don't really apply, because he's a fictional president:

...

BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.

OBAMA And?

BARTLET I was.

OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?

BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.

...

OBAMA How did you do it?

BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.

OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?

BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”

...

So if a fictional character arc can't give us advice for real life, then, um, what's the point of this conversation? Dowd's entire raison d'etre is publishing fluff to keep her readers' attention. At first, this struck me as juvenile. But then I realized that this blog has only two readers (the contributors) and I started to wonder: what would Dowd and Sorkin's conversation about this column have looked like IF POPEYE THE SAILOR WERE INVOLVED? Huh? Huh?

(AARON SORKIN walks furiously down a hall in his studio. POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN is walking furiously on his left. MAUREEN DOWD, the popular columnist, catches up to them and walks furiously on Sorkin's right.)

DOWD We need to talk about the column I asked you about.

SORKIN Right, the column you asked me about.

DOWD You forgot to write it, didn't you?

SORKIN No I didn't.

DOWD Great!

SORKIN Except there's just one thing --

DOWD What?

SORKIN That column?

DOWD Yes?

SORKIN I forgot to write it.

DOWD (exasperated) Oh, Jesus. Popeye, what should I do?

POPEYE Well, I'd eat me spinach and go save me Olive. But I yam just a fictional character, and that's all that I yam.

SORKIN Look, we'll just write something with Bartlet talking to Obama.

DOWD Bartlet?

SORKIN Yes. Talking to Obama.

DOWD Obama?

SORKIN Obama.

DOWD Talking to Bartlet?

SORKIN Yes. Popeye, what do you think?

POPEYE I can't stands it no more.

Accessorizing

First of all, sorry for my inactivity lately. My day job (nice try, but I'm not tellin') and my night job (crying over the failures of a wretched baseball team) have taken up time this week.

But I came to realize what's truly important last night while watching the Presidential debate on my couch. I was watching it, oddly enough, with Ann Hazelbaker, a middle aged woman from a swing state who lost her son in Iraq. And towards the end of the debate, she handed me a bracelet and said "Don't let Jimmy's sacrifice be in vain. I want you to keep your blog regularly updated with fresh content."

I still have that bracelet, almost twelve hours later. And I promise, Ann, I won't make one more mother keep refreshing this page.

Sometimes dumb is obvious

"We shouldn't second guess Israel's security efforts because we cannot ever afford to send the message that we would allow a second holocaust."

I guess Sarah Palin doesn't use the 'slippery slope' argument so much as the 'cliff right above a black hole' argument. Just so I'm clear, if we were to, say, suggest that assassinating members of Hamas on public roads using missiles is maybe not the best idea, we would in fact be saying "Go ahead, kill all the Jews, we won't do nothin'?"

At what point do we start asking whether Sarah Palin is ACTUALLY George Bush in drag? Sure they look different, and Palin has a faux midwestern accent as opposed to Bush's faux Texas accent, but as Palin herself suggested, lipstick only goes so far. A pitbull remains a pitbull and an ignorant absolutist remains an ignorant absolutist no matter how cute the glasses or pretty the face.

This just in

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Let me get my soapbox out for a few moments here. People read an article like this and think "Oh, it's cute" and they think of adorable old Abe Vigoda and they smile. But for CNN to run this kind of, not even fluff; this kind of AIR on their front page during a time of such extreme national turmoil is flat out irresponsible. It's not even marked "Entertainment." It's in there with the real news.

People, especially bottom-line focused editors, will argue that they do have articles on actual issues, like the Wall Street bail out, the presidential race, and international turmoil, and people can choose to read what they want to read. That's true, objectively. But people can also go to a thousand other sources for their bullshit light reading. People come to CNN.com for, presumably, hard news. It's like making the choice to go to a health-focused restaurant only to find the menu packed with french fries and chocolate mud cake. Sure you CAN still choose the spinach and walnut salad, but many people won't. Temptation is called temptation because it's hard to resist. Offering a choice between a difficult article about a scary topic like the financial crisis alongside an easy and pleasant read like "Abe Vigoda still alive!" will mean a lot of people skip the important article and read the light and easy article. It will mean a less informed populace right before a very important national election. By posting this article CNN is saying "We only care about money, we aren't focused on responsible journalism, we're no different Twinky salesmen." Maybe that would be a more appropriate tag line than "The Most Trusted Name in News"


By the by, the lead article (complete with picture) on the CNN website right now is NOT the financial crisis. It's a story about a seven year old kidnapping. While that's definitely not as utterly worthless as an "Abe Vigoda Remains Not Dead" story, it serves the same purpose. It's human interest vs. hard news. These girls were kidnapped a long time ago. They very well may be dead. While I hope that they are alive and will be recovered, the chances of a story about them leading to that recovery, especially without a current picture, are tiny. For every criminal caught thanks to America's Most Wanted there are a dozen more featured and still at large, or caught through unrelated measures. It's much more important that people know about something they can influence, namely the issues in the upcoming election, than they learn details of yet another tragic story. Tragic stories are inevitable and ubiquitous. This story is at best minor news, as horrible as it might be.

The mix of fluffy bullshit with hard news, and especially the elevation of the former over the latter, is absolutely toxic for society. There was a time when news organizations knew this and sacrificed some profitability for the public good, and for the social capital of being a distinguished source of important information. These days are long gone. I want them back.

Ed "I'm no Henry" Rollins

Ed Rollins is a Republican. Ed Rollins worked for Ronald Reagan. Ed Rollins has some comments on the presidential campaign and the economic crisis. Take it away, big Ed.

In running a campaign, you have controllables, and you have uncontrollables.

Donald Rumsfeld would like a word with you about controllable controllables, uncontrollable controllables, and controllable uncontrollable controllabes.

Controllables are what the candidate says in his speeches; where he appears, who he picks as a running mate, how much money he raises

Isn't raising money kind of an uncontrollable controllable, in that you don't just get to set a figure and say abra cadabra?

In planning your campaign strategy, you must be near perfect in the things you control.

Apparently being 'near perfect' allows for tiny gaffes like suggesting that the Spanish head of state might not be welcome at the White House, because Venezuela is hostile to the U.S. and they speak Spanish there, and they also speak Spanish in Spain, so, well, you do the math.

You also get a free pass if you nominate a religious nut with no foreign policy knowledge or experience, ties to radical separatists, and a history of graft and nepotism as your vice presidential candidate.

Nobody's TOTALLY perfect, right?

But you also must prepare for the things that you don't control.

While campaigning. Once you get elected you can forget all that noise and focus on the fun part of being president, like walking hand in hand with Saudi Princes and congratulating your buddy 'Brownie' on doing a heckuva job (Regardless if said heckuva job was actually done!)

President Bush's administration was mortally damaged by the mishandling of Katrina. It became a symbol of an administration that could do nothing right.

To be fair to the president, it's not like Katrina doesn't have stiff competition in the 'symbols of incompetence' category. This

The financial meltdown last week was the Katrina equivalent in this campaign.

Again, to be fair, I think the president gets credit for this one too. I'm not sure you can blame Barack Obama for not having retroactively solved the financial crisis before he became president, although Rush Limbaugh will try his very best.

And it was more than just an uncontrollable event. It was a game-changer.

We are no longer playing 'elect a president.' The contest will now be decided by sudden death beer pong. Obama's objections that this would be unconstitutional, and that McCain is married to a beer magnate are noted. They are overruled. I believe it is your serve, Johnathan McCain.
Whatever else the campaigns want to talk about, nothing will matter more than the perception of "who gets it."

Nobody gets it yet. That's sort of the problem. Oh. Right. You mean nothing will matter except the ability of one of the candidates to attempt to simplify the problem and frame it in a bullshit way so that the American people will think there's an easy solution, even though there's not. Right.

The winner should be the man who appears to understand these financial problems and can convince the country that he can be the "lifeguard" who can rescue ordinary Americans from drowning in this sea of economic uncertainty.

If it's about who the American people would rather see as a lifeguard, well, easy choice.


Several weeks ago, I wrote in this space that a campaign needs to win most of the remaining weeks in order to be successful in winning an election. I compared it to fighters winning the rounds in order to win the fight.

Saying something more than once doesn't make it more true. Republicans seem to think it does, but it doesn't. There are no points for winning individual weeks. A couple big scandals or great debate/speech performances can change the outcome, regardless of what's come before. Also, you said the game was changed. You lied to me.

In the period since the Republican convention, Gov. Sarah Palin won the "weeks" for her team.

But none of that matters now because all that's important is who 'gets' the financial crisis. Also the game is changed. But we're still boxing. I'm confused.

She dominated the media. She moved poll numbers favorably

Before people got to know who she was, and the poll numbers shot back down, proving that winning individual weeks is irrelevant except in the context of the final outcome, because all that matters is who gets more votes on election day* not who's more popular in September.

In the midst of the financial crisis last week, it was John McCain's turn to pick up the ball and run with it.

Why? Why didn't Obama have a turn to do so? Is this part of how the game has changed?

He didn't do it very well. He used the Bush administration talking points on Monday: The "all the fundamentals are fine" speech! It was perceived as a disaster.

Other things perceived as disasters:
The last Challenger mission.
The maiden voyage of the Titanic.
Bristol Palin's abstinence education.

The word 'perceived' doesn't really have a place here. It can go chill with all the other verbs we don't need right now. Like 'jigger.'

Barack Obama's response wasn't much better. He took no position but jumped on McCain for saying things were OK.

You see, instead of jumping to the wrong conclusion immediately Obama took time to try and think things through, learn what he could about what was happening, and generally act like a thoughtful and responsible person.

Huge mistake. Remember, what's important is to be perceived as understanding things, even if you don't, and to immediately make a read on the situation even if you don't have one. To quote everyone's favorite hockey mom "Don't blink. Ever."

On Tuesday, McCain switched positions from "no bailouts" to "bailouts are needed." Obama still took no position.

McCain took TWO positions (contradictory though they may have been) before Obama even took one. I think we know who's fit to lead here.

His running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, said rich Americans should be patriotic and pay more taxes. A more idiotic statement has never been uttered!

"All the fundamentals of our economy are fine."

First of all, we know Joe Biden's said stupider things because he insulted Ohio State, guaranteeing a McCain victory in Ohio. Secondly, just so I am clear here, a patriot shouts drill baby drill and waves little flags around, and talks a blue streak about how great America is, but under no circumstances considers giving more money to the government despite the fact that we have an unfathomably high deficit and are now spending a trillion dollars to bail out the banks?

Patriot: Empty meaningless gestures.
Non-patriot: Sacrificing for the good of the government and the nation
Black: The color of puffy clouds
White: The color of pitch.

But then he also said last week that people in financial trouble should be able to renegotiate their interest and the principal on their housing loans. The idea of renegotiating how much you borrowed is a novel approach that should thrill the banks.

Seriously. You don't renegotiate. You call your lobbyist and demand a trillion tax dollars to cover your mistakes. That's how the banks do it, that's how Joe Mortgage should do it. Get with the program, dudes. (P.S. If the banks actually did renegotiate they might avoid some foreclosures which cost them much more than the renegotiations would, but they can't renegotiate because they've cut up the mortgages and repackaged them so many times that nobody actually owns them anymore. If only there were some new legislation to deal with this issue and open up communication...)

By Friday, McCain was back against bailouts.

THREE positions in a week. SUCK IT OBAMA!

Obama's position was: I think I am going to support Paulson's bailout, but I am going to wait and see what Bush and the Congress propose before I offer my solutions.

Cautious and thoughtful. WHAT A DISASTER.

There were no profiles in courage last week from the political campaigns.

I think it was pretty courageous of McCain to flip flop so nakedly. Also, apparently choosing to reserve judgment and think through a problem when everyone around you is screaming for immediate solutions is uncourageous.


And maybe a rush to judgment wasn't the best course either.

WHAT? How can you possibly justify that statement.


Congratulations Ed Rollins. You've managed to write a column in which you A) Talk about the horse race instead of the issues and B) Give statements that manage to be both contradictory and cynical while offering absolutely nothing in the way of insightful analysis. This is the sort of drunken old man rant I expect from my Grandpa Lester when he's off his medication.

And from CNN.

*As registered by Diebold brand electronic voting machines. Diebold, because accurate vote counts are BORING.

The Greatest Threat Facing Our Country

It's been a slow week for news in this country: Wall Street's cruising along, the weather in the Houston area has been beautiful. Yes, everything was going great until Joe Biden had to go and ruin all that:



(CNN) — Joe Biden's off-the-cuff remarks on the trail have at times taken the Obama campaign off-message, but the Delaware senator's latest riff just may have landed him in hot water with voters — and die hard football fans — in a key battleground state.

Voters ... AND die hard football fans? But how? Please go on, this sounds important.

Speaking to members of the University of Delaware football team Friday morning, the Democratic VP candidate said he thinks the Fightin Blue Hens (1-1 this season) could thrash a certain team from Ohio.

"I was out in Ohio," he said while fiddling with a football in his hands. "I told the folks in Ohio that we'd kick Ohio State's ass!" (It remains unclear if Biden actually ever told Ohio voters this.)

...

Biden, a proud University of Delaware alum, was clearly trying to rally his Division 1-AA team ahead of their match-up with Furman this weekend, but the comments couldn't have come at a worse time for faithful Buckeye fans who saw their team suffer a 35-3 trouncing at the hands of USC last weekend.

Joe Biden didn't have the decency to make those comments when the Buckeyes were ranked in the top five. He clearly waited for a blowout loss just to rub OSU's nose in it.

The comments also come as polls show the race in Ohio could hardly be tighter: A CNN poll of polls in the Buckeye state shows Obama holding a slim 1 point lead there. Close enough, presumably, that enough angry OSU fans could just make the difference — at least that's what Republicans are hoping.

CNN is presenting this as an statewide issue for Ohio, but in fact it's much bigger than that. I mean, TODAY it's Ohio. But maybe tomorrow Joe Biden will be rallying his alma mater against a team from YOUR state. Right now you're thinking, "My grandmother's 91, and she roots for the Longhorns every Saturday ... surely Joe Biden wouldn't go after Texas?!?" Oh yeah. He would. And not even blink. We should all vote against Obama/Biden before this happens again.

"As if his comments about it being a patriotic duty for Ohioans to pay higher taxes weren't bad enough, now Biden is taking pot shots at the Buckeyes," GOP State chair Bob Bennett said. "Barack Obama and Joe Biden must really think they can win this election without Ohio, because they're doing their best to lose it with stupid comments like these. Keep talking, Joe."

David Wade, a spokesman for Biden said, “I think this episode explains exactly why we’ll win Ohio: Joe Biden is loyal to his home team, and John McCain is loyal to President Bush."

"We forgive the Republicans on this one, though," he added. "After watching John McCain flip flop on everything from taxes to torture, they’re just mystified by someone who takes a position and sticks with it.”

UPDATE: Michigan Democrats, fans of OSU arch rival University of Michigan, weighed in on the back-and-forth, calling John McCain a "Panderer in Chief" for recently purchasing Ohio State apparel on a campaign swing.

"John McCain won't be hailing any victors on Election Day if he thinks Michigan fans will let this recent pander slide," said Liz Kerr, a spokesperson for the Michigan Democratic Party.

VERY sloppy journalism on CNN's part. They brought in valuable insight from: (1) The Ohio GOP, (2) The Ohio Democratic Party, and (3) The Michigan Democratic Party. But as a CNN.com reader and occasional college football fan I'd like to know how the Ohio Green Party feels about this earth-shattering event, as well as the Delaware GOP, Penn State College Democrats, and maybe even Lou Holtz. C'mon CNN, your work is hardly done.

Tickle Me Glenn

We all know somebody like Glenn Beck. He’s the pill-addicted uncle who you have to watch around the wine at Thanksgiving. He’s the school crossing guard who, if you have the misfortune to be waiting for the light with him, regales you with conspiracy theories and alarmingly racist statements about passing Arabs. He’s the mattress salesman who stands a little too close to you, sweats profusely, and makes inappropriate jokes about the things you’ll be doing in the bed he desperately wants to sell you.

But Beck’s not a crossing guard or a mattress salesman. He’s a talk show host for CNN/Headline News. Sometimes he fills in for Larry King on the main channel. And sometimes Glenn Beck pens columns for CNN.com, offering invaluable insight into what the guy at the bus stop who creeps your girlfriend out by staring at her all the time thinks about the issues of the day. In his latest column Beck:

A) Manages to make the recent U.S. financial meltdown even more confusing and
B) Reaffirms his support of torture by torturing a metaphor to the point where it will tell him whatever he wants it to say so long as he promises to stop hurting it.

Let’s have a look:

"Greed is good."

At least, that's what Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko claimed in the movie Wall Street.

In case you’re wondering, Glenn Beck isn’t one of those pinko commie fag lovers who’s destroying America. He loves business and the free market and oil companies and apple pie.

But, just like Gekko, the modern-day companies that followed that motto now find themselves wondering how everything could collapse so fast.

Except when things go bad.

Beck goes on to talk about Wall Street for a little while and relate some of its history, as only Glenn Beck can.

Lehman was founded in 1844 when Henry Lehman, a German immigrant, opened a small shop in Montgomery, Alabama. His brothers joined him six years later and, by 1858 they were busy turning cotton provided by local farmers into a cash crop -- a business that didn't have anything to do with helping low-income families afford 27-bedroom McMansions.

That’s true. There weren’t any McMansions in Alabama in the mid-1800s. All the big houses there were in the middle of beautiful fields of flowing cotton, worked by happy singing employees who all shared one thing in common. They were slaves. Glenn Beck is chiding Lehman Brothers for getting out of the lucrative slave-harvested cotton business and into the risky and immoral mortgages for low-income family business.

Bear Stearns' story is eerily similar. Founded in 1923. Survived every crisis. Never posted a quarterly loss until last year. Gone without a trace.

Two companies in the same industry both did well until they both went under during a crisis that rocked that industry. They're also both pretty old. Eerie.

So how did 235 years of rock-solid American finance disappear virtually overnight? Well, it's not as complicated as you think. If you replace all of the acronyms invented by the brainiacs on Wall Street with references to things that Main Street understands, it becomes a lot easier to see how it all happened. Here's a quick story I invented that does just that.

Glenn Beck is going to put this crisis into terms that Main Street understands. And what does Main Street understand?

It's just before Christmas,1996, and as you watch overeager parents trample each other to buy Tickle Me Elmo dolls for their kids, you see an opportunity.

Tickle Me Elmo.

Not the iPhone not the Nintendo Wii not even those commie hybrid cars with the long waiting lists.

Tickle Me Elmo.

Topical, relevant, and a perfect analogy for complex mortgage derivatives laundered through even more complicated ratings procedures and repackaged as...

Tickle Me Elmo.

This isn't a Tickle Me Elmo bubble," you think to yourself, "this is a long-term trend. Every person in America will soon own a Tickle Me Elmo, maybe even two. It's the American dream."

Glenn Beck you have crawled into my brain circa 1996, captured the exact thoughts I had at the time, and now, 12 years later, you’ve put them out there for the world to see. Bravo sir. Bravo.

You approach your local banker about a loan and, naturally, he loves your idea.

This would happen. If you lived on Sesame Street. And your banker was Cookie Monster. C is for cookie. That's good enough for him. Oscar the Grouch would want to see a long term business plan.

In fact, he loves it so much that for every $1 you have in your account, he's willing to lend you $34. Great deal, you think, as you max out your credit line and buy as many Tickle Me Elmos as you possibly can.

Sales are easy at first. People are lining up to buy your dolls and the prices are going far higher than you ever thought. The only person happier than you is your banker.

Because he's high on chocolaty baked goods.

But the following year something unexpected happens: Kids stop asking for Tickle Me Elmos.

Didn't see that coming. It's only happened with every other fad toy in the history of toy sales. What are the chances it would happen again?

You try to cut the price, but no buyers show up. You cut the price more, but your store remains empty.

Okay. Well presumably I’m prepared for this, since I’ve been selling them like crazy for a year now and presumably I’ve noticed the trending down of demand during the Summer and Autumn months, so I’m prepared, right? I'm cool and relaxed 'cause I've got this covered.

Panic sets in.

Oh.

You're pretty sure that this downturn is just temporary (after all, who wouldn't want a Tickle Me Elmo?) but you're quickly running out of cash. Your only option is to buy time and hope that Tickle Me Elmos start flying off your shelves again.

That doesn’t seem like a very good option.

You visit every bank in town and, using your piles of Tickle Me Elmo dolls as collateral (which, of course, you purchased with money you didn't have) you get as much new capital as possible.

So this bank really is on Sesame Street. Now that I have this capital what am I going to do with it? Invest it in a diversified group of new toys so I’m not so dependent on Elmo demand swings? Put it all towards the new hot toy?

Soon that money is also gone. Even your friends and family refuse to give you any more loans.

What about The Count? He's got some swanky digs. Can he spare a few bucks? One? Two? Three?

At the end of your rope, you go to your town council, which gives you a "bridge loan" to get you through the next few months (something that makes your Furby-selling competitors extremely upset).

I used all my new capital to bribe town council members. Nice. But if I get through the next few months won’t I have bypassed the Christmas sales season altogether and still be stuck with all these Elmos?

Unfortunately, no matter how much you borrow, there's still one nagging little problem: No one wants to buy your stupid Tickle Me Elmo dolls anymore.

Stupid Elmo. It's all your fault!

The longer you wait, the less they're worth. You sell some for pennies on the dollar, but pretty soon you can't even do that. Then things get even worse: News breaks that China is poisoning some Tickle Me Elmos before shipping them to the United States. Now your dolls are not just out of favor, they're toxic. You literally can't even give them away.

CHINA! Those red bastards. Fortunately I can sue the Chinese company that’s poisoning my Elmos, thus saving me from bankruptcy. Right?

Now at this point the Elmo metaphor has been waterboarded, beaten with rubber hoses, and had holes drilled in its joints. It is begging for a swift and merciful end. It’s not even clear whether the Elmos are houses or mortgages or mortgage backed securities or whether Glenn Beck has just forgotten the whole ‘metaphor’ thing and is literally telling the sad story of a simple Tickle Me Elmo salesman who fell on hard times and was preyed upon by malignant Chinese Elmo manufacturers. The Metaphor wants to die. But Glenn Beck doesn’t believe in swift and merciful deaths. He believes in torture.

Soon the rest of your money dries up, as do the people who are willing to lend you any more of it. Now you're out of cash; out of a job, and, if not for the pile of poisonous Tickle Me Elmo dolls in your basement, completely alone -- which sounds kind of like the CEOs of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

Right. Except that the CEOs of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns are still extremely rich men whose basements contain gold bullion and a spanking bench for naughty hookers. Maybe the Elmos represent the gold. Or the spanking bench. Or the hookers?

Believe it or not, this ridiculous story may be far from reality,

Believe it.

but it's not that far off from describing what these financial and mortgage companies did to themselves.

No. It's very far.

just replace the Tickle Me Elmo references with the once popular, then discounted, now completely toxic subprime mortgages and you're pretty much there.

Sir, you are still on Sesame Street. The actual process of the meltdown has been explained excellently in a number of publications, and it has to do a lot more with bad incentives, dishonest ratings on mortgage backed bonds, low rates of returns on government securities, a swollen supply of investment capital, myths about the housing market, and deregulation than it does with making bad bets on trendy products and Chinese malfeasance. Sorry. Let's get back to Mr. Beck.

When you cut through all the noise about "bridge loans" and "discount windows," what you're left with is the fact that too many companies still own way too many Tickle Me Elmos that no one wants to buy.

So the Elmos are the defaulted mortgages? Or the mortgage backed securities that are now worthless?

Giving those companies more money doesn't solve anything, it just buys time. Unless and until the underlying problem is fixed, no real turnaround can happen.

Right. The underlying problem. The public’s cruel spurning of those delightful Tickle Me Elmo toys. I guess the real culprit isn’t China after all. It’s Japan and its goddamned Pokemons.

But we all know that investors (and elected leaders worried about their careers this November) aren't all that patient.

As opposed to Glenn Beck’s readers, who are willing to slog through pages of babble about Tickle Me Elmo to get to something that looks sort of pointish.

That's why the new chorus you're likely to soon hear will be from people arguing that the only way out of this mess is for the federal government to step in and purchase all of the toxic mortgages themselves.

A) This has already begun, with the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
B) I’m not sure what this has to do with impatience. It’s more about aversion to pain. These problems were not going to work themselves out except through the extremely painful collapse of American financial companies, leading to almost certain recession and possible depression.
C) What happened to Elmo? Why are we talking about mortgages all of a sudden? How did the Chinese sneak poison into our mortgages? Those sneaky fucking Asians.

That would allow the companies with eyes bigger than their balance sheets to start over, with barely any repercussions whatsoever and without ever taking responsibility for their mistakes.

Except that all the shareholders have been wiped out and the companies sold off. I guess that doesn’t count as a repercussion on Sesame Street. Perhaps Beck would have preferred a stern lecture from Big Bird?

Come to think of it, maybe greed isn't so bad after all.


Would the government actually consider that idea? They already are.

You know who likes pronoun/noun agreement? Chinese communists. That's whom.

In fact, the only thing stopping politicians from "rewarding" us with a new government agency that will put billions more of our tax dollars at stake is, ironically enough, the election of new politicians.

I don’t understand this sentence. How would our tax dollars be at stake? Isn’t Beck saying they’d just be given away? And how is electing new politicians stopping them from making bad decisions? And why is it ironic?


Disclaimer: Tickle Me Elmo is still an extremely popular, non-toxic product and, to the best of my knowledge, is not responsible for the credit crisis.

Thanks for clearing that up.

(Note to any Wall Street executives who might be reading this: I know this simple little story isn't perfect,

What? Glenn, don’t be so modest.

but let's remember that you're the ones who tried to make everything complicated

Yeah, you TRIED to make everything complicated, but Glenn Beck just cut through all your math and legal verbiage and eggheadedness with a simple, perfect, metaphor. Your turn, Richard Fuld.

and I'm the one who still has a job.)

Burn. Glenn Beck still has his job. So, Richard Fuld, while you’re relaxing in your mansion with your tens of millions of dollars, know that Glenn Beck is still going to work every day, rain or shine, explaining your misdeeds to the masses in bafflingly incoherent ways, and making sure that angry white men have a voice on CNN, now matter how weird or off the mark that voice may be. Tickle that, Mr. Fuld. Tickle that.