Dear Friend and Reader:
OVER THE LAST four years, whenever I felt unsure about the political state of the nation, I’d run and grab for my Casey fix. My friend Casey, met while volunteering for the Kerry-Edwards campaign as a blog moderator in 2003-4, is a political strategist and communications consultant who has worked for local representatives in upstate New York as well as for Tom Hayden here in California.
It’s been said about Casey, with all due respect and admiration, that you can count on her to bring the perfect knife to use against the opposition in a political fight. Thank God she’s on our side.
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Henry Paulson, Secretary of the US Treasury, in Asian garb for some reason. Maybe his mom bought it for him.
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Whenever that sense of overwhelm grips and I feel so fearful that I can’t quite read the portents, I call Casey for my fix of real political straight talk, take the load from our minds on what’s happening, and laugh our asses off over the strange kabuki that American politics has become.
When I asked about the credit crisis on Wall Street, Casey quipped: “First of all, Fe, you have to do a ‘what’s up?’ with Hank Paulson’s resume. He’s formerly the CEO and Chairman of Goldman-Sachs. (Paulson joined the Bush White House as Secretary of the Treasury in 2006.)
In the heat of Wall Street’s shakeup two weeks ago (described in full here at Planetwaves) Goldman-Sachs seems now to be relatively safe, quietly announcing their new role while competition roiled and fell in the midst of the “economic crisis.” Do you think Goldman-Sachs might have been working off of insider information? Does this remind you of how a certain Vice-President we know, formerly of Halliburton, whose former company benefitted from no-bid contracts from the Iraq war and reconstruction?
Using the name that’s now a verb in popular culture: Was Paulson Cheney-ing the country’s economy? Was the over-hype of the crisis a cover to protect Goldman-Sachs while they re-structured and allowed other larger banks free reign to swallow up their smaller-sized competition?
On another front, losing in key battleground states on the issue of the economy, the McCain campaign’s strategy now is to use its most recent shiny object, VP candidate Sarah Palin, as our latest distraction. She reminded us at Thursday’s debate how dangerous a nuclear Iran was, and that Obama’s ‘naive’ plan for Iraq was tantamount to “the white flag of surrender”. Not that I am sure she understood what she was saying, but yes more military, more threat, more outside incursion. No common sense. No communication. Just four-inch heels and boogeymen.