Joe Lieberman's Failings

After spending the day on Joe Lieberman's campaign trail Monday, my opinion of him has never been more mixed. By all accounts, he's done a fine job looking out for the interests of his constituents, and that's why they've sent him to the Senate despite a position or two, especially on world affairs, that are largely out of step with New England Democrats.
Lieberman has spent his career trying to craft the image of a man of principle and conscience. But to me, has come across more as an opportunist.
After two unsucessful national campaigns, Lieberman has, as the New York Times put it in endorsing his opponent Ned Lamont, become the Bush administration's leading Democratic yes man. In my view, he clearly did this not out of principle but in the hopes of, at this late stage in his career, being named director of Homeland Security, the CIA or to the UN post that went to John Bolton. Unfortunately for Joe, Bush decided it would be more fun to leave Joe twisting in the breeze. I'd speculate that the president deliberately kissed Lieberman in front of the cameras after his 2005 state of the union to taint his re-election, but that would be giving too much credit to a man who has shown almost no aptitude for foresight and planning.
Regardless, Lieberman's now left in the position of having given his Democrat opponent enough ammunition to, if not blow Lieberman out of the water, at least leave him listing severely to port(that is, to the right.) In the best scenario, Joe pulls off the nomination, trounces the nobody Republican and goes back to The Hill for another six years. But he's damaged goods, and twice as many sharks, smelling blood, will be circling in 2012 if Joe runs again. Those could well include Ned Lamont in a rubber match.
Lieberman has made history as the first Jew on a major party national ticket, but his best days are behind him. I feel sorry for him because, by all accounts, he has performed admirably in looking out for the interests of his constituents. Too bad he didn't, in the end, prove very adept at looking out for himself.

The Utility Of Blaming Con Ed

I can't help feel a bit of sympathy for the people at Con Edison as they struggle with the humongous and unenviable task of trying to keep millions of air conditioners running in this heat without any interruptions. That's in addition to the usual lights, refigerators, computers and billions of other devices in this increasingly wired world.
A news item today says a United Nations committee agrees with Al Gore, the earth is getting hotter, get used to it. That creates a vicious cycle: We're less comfortable so we need more energy to cool us which creates more pollution and more warming. Why does it seem not enough people see this as a problem? But that's for another post.
A group of Queens politicians has been having a field day calling for something just short of the public flogging of Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke because of the power outage that left thousands of homes dark for more than a week. I don't take that situation lightly (pun unintended) and many people suffered personal misery and severe economic hardship.
It may very well be that Burke or someone in his chain of command was asleep at the switch and that's what led to the crisis. But the rush to judgment is staggering. The Queens pols make the valid point that the company was initially slow in assessing the problem. But given that the company, under the harshest public scrutiny, still can't account for what happened, unless there is a major coverup, the utility is clearly dealing with something that never happened before.
The problem with the unpredictable is that, by nature, there is no way to plan for it. That's why 9-11 was effective and devastating. No one except the warped minds of the terrorists could conceive of such a plan beforehand, much less stave it off.
In the case of this blackout and the others that will very likely come in the future as we strain the grid to the breaking point, the priority is to get facts and analyze them. There's plenty of time for blame later. Imagine a ship that's taking on water and the entire crew scrambling to figure out whose job it was to check for water and how to punish him, rather than first plugging the leak.
We're in a crisis not too different than that now, with our lives now so completely dependent on electricity. The last thing we need is to draw the focus of the people whose jobs it is to keep the power on away from that job, to worry instead about whose going to be yelling at them when things go wrong.

Bigotheart

Don't drink and drive is only the most obvious message that comes out of the recent arrest and humiliation of Mel Gibson. (With the half-billion he made off the "Passion," he couldn't hire a limo for the night and drink to his heart's content?)

With all that grog in his system the former "Road Warrior" could have killed someone doing 80 mph+ on the Pacific Coast Highway. If you're drunk enough not to be thinking about what's coming out of your mouth while you're ranting against war-hungry Jews, it's hard to imagine you can judge the space between yourself and the semi in the next lane very well, or slow down enough on a sharp turn so as not to jump the divider.

Mel faces community service, license suspension, a 12-step program and (gasp!) a steep fine for the drunk driving rap. But getting out of the bigger predicament will take some doing. With Ken Lay dead, Bush jokes getting tired, Britney Spears now using the proper child-seat in her car and Michael Jackson laying low in that Arab country, the late-night TV writers are looking for a new foil. Before this happened Jay Leno was down to making fun of gas-remedy commercials.

Now, expect a good 4-6 weeks of Mel jokes. More when his next movie comes out.

But as anyone's Jewish uncle might say, couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I honestly wasn't convinced during the whole Passion of the Christ affair that Mel was an anti-Semite, or just someone who used anti-Semitism to make a buck, get popular with people who are anti-Semites, or to please his anti-Semitic dad, any of which are just as bad.

But Mel does indeed appear to have been poisoned by his Holocaust-denying Dad. If so, it's sad to know that the seeds someone plants in the mind of an innocent child so long ago can continue to sprout so many years later (Mel's in his 50s). Having lived his life to the fullest, Mel has surely had enough experiences and met enough people to have overwritten those damaged circuits with better ones that teach you not to judge people collectively or buy into sterotypes. Mel works in Hollywood, and let's face it: Jews have tremendous influence there, although it's individually and not as part of the nefarious cabal imagined by Jew-phobic conspiracy theorists. Mel's career has undoubtedly benefitted from personal and professional relationships with Jews that have contributed to his enormous success as an actor, director and producer. That makes us wonder: What's he so upset about? Is his animus about Jews based on personal experience?

Does he know something the rest of the world doesn't? If he does, instead of an apology, why not offer an explanation, and let the rest of the world judge him not by the late-night jokes but by what's in his heart. Not that there's any excuse for bigotry, but it would be enlightening to know the backstory of how Mel got to this place in his life, lest we assume he's nothing more than a shallow, loudmouthed jerk.