The polluted Los Angeles skyline.

Why we need big government

If you turn on the Fox News Channel at any given hour, you will likely find a pundit or news commentator who has abandoned all pretense of objectivity and chosen to flog the old Republican idea of small government as a solution to America's problems. If America's poor are forced to stand on their own - especially its minorities, they say - they will learn the value of hard work and start making a contribution to society. There's just one problem with that. It doesn't work. I'll admit, there are plenty of people who abuse the government's social welfare system and refuse to get a job no matter how many children they have, or the state of poverty they live in. But the way the Fox News people talk, you would think that they believe that the solution is to cut these people off drastically and completely, and I think there's a great deal of hatred in that approach. A person who has lived on welfare for years and has not prepared themselves in any way for a job is not going to be ready for one just because Congress suddenly cuts off their food stamps. There are people with legitimate disabilities out there who are not going to be helped by the private sector for the simple reason that there is no profit motive for that sector to do so. In an America where able-bodied factory workers with years of experience are being laid off by the thousands to give their jobs to foreigners who work dirt cheap, why would these same companies extend a helping hand to those who for various reasons - lack of training, addiction, criminal records, mental or physical illness - have trouble getting and keeping a job? This is where the government has to step in and help take care of its own. Pell grants and federal student loans to educate the poor, Medicaid and Medicare to take care of the sick, drug and alcohol rehab programs to help keep America sober, a fully funded education mandate for the kids - all these things can help the poor and disadvantaged learn to take care of themselves and make a contribution. Without big government and social welfare programs to help those who need a leg up, America's poor, which is comprised mostly of minorities, will remain a permanent underclass. It is also necessary for the government to assume responsibility for environmentally policing America's industries. The Bush administration has gutted regulations governing the coal and timber industries, and refused to get serious about finding an alternative to fossil fuels. It seems to believe that without punitive measures to keep big business honest, our industries will police themselves. I don't believe it, and I think that a safe workplace, clean air, clean water, and plentiful natural resources are also the responsiblity of our government. Conservatives sneer at these ideas, and refer to the liberal ideal as a "nanny state." All I can say to that is, without the nanny state, maybe your kids don't get to go to college. Maybe one of them gets cancer due to the lack of a Superfund to clean up toxic waste. Maybe if you lose your job, you don't get unemployment to keep you and your family fed until you can find another. Conservatives hate big government, but let's get serious here. We are a big country with different people who have different abilities. We need it. See related article.

Senator Joe Biden, D-DE.

Democrats and "Foot-in-Mouth Disease"

By now, those of us who follow Democratic Presidential politics have heard Senator and candidate Joe Biden, D-DE, put his foot in it with his remarks about fellow Senator and candidate Barack Obama, D-IL. For those who haven't heard yet, Biden's exact comments were, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man," as told to the New York Observer. Ugh. Where to begin? Not only does he imply that previous African-American Presidential hopefuls were unclean, dumb, and not articulate, he also, by extension, paints the African-American race with that brush. On top of that, he makes Democrats in general look like fools. Didn't anyone clue him in that just one racially charged word, spoken at the wrong time, can end a candidacy? If he wants to know, all he has to do is ask former Senator George Allen, R-VA, who lost a close Senate race to Democrat Jim Webb at least partially on the basis of the word "macaca," spoken in reference to a campaign worker of Asian descent. What makes Biden's gaffe worse than Allen's is the size of the stage (Presidential vs. Senatorial) and the fact that Allen, for a little while at least, had plausible deniability. After all, few people knew what "macaca" meant until the national media looked it up for them, and for a while, Allen could maintain that he'd just made the term up. Biden has no such place to hide. While this may be for the best - I believe the Democratic Party's best hopes for 2008 lie with front runners Obama and Hillary Clinton, D-NY - it is always unfortunate to see a prominent Democrat make a fool of him or herself. The problem is, Democrats seem to make a habit of doing so. John Kerry's (D-MA) mangled joke about uneducated people getting "stuck in Iraq," Dick Durbin (D-IL) and his ill-advised comparison of American servicemen and their interrogation techniques to Nazis, the aforementioned Jim Webb and his wanting to punch the President for sending his son to Iraq - all of this speaks to a lack of focus and discipline among the most prominent of Democrats. I, for one, would like to see it stopped. While no politician can always speak or behave perfectly, Democrats, especially those seeking the Oval Office, have a higher responsibility. They cannot afford to lose this one, not while there is a war that needs to be stopped. And while I am on the subject, Democrats in both houses of Congress need to toughen up, bite the bullet, and cut off funding for the war. Since the slim majority in the Senate couldn't round up 60 votes for a non-binding (as in useless) resolution condemning the troop surge, a vote to defund seems unlikely anytime soon. This is unfortunate. Those who have seen the military drama "A Few Good Men" likely remember when Jack Nicholson's character remarks that a Marine is "in the business of saving lives." Right now, our legislative branch of government needs to be in the business of saving our troops, and they cannot allow verbal missteps or political expediency to stop them. Time to toughen up, Democrats, and do the right thing. This war needs to be over. See related article.

Why do people hate Hillary?

It's true - there has probably never been as polarizing a presidential candidate as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY. As a resident of the rural Midwest for all of my life, I have an up-close and personal view of Hillary-hatred, and it is widespread, coming from many different quarters and social strata. I remember at the height of the Monica Lewinsky affair, people wearing T-shirts that said, "I'd cheat on Hillary too." Fans of the comedian Chris Rock probably remember a routine of his in which he blamed the former first lady for that scandal, claiming that if she had satisfied his needs, it never would have happened. It's impossible to bring up Hillary in a blue-collar bar without a local person (usually male) shouting out, "She's a lesbian!" or some cruder variant of the term. An elderly friend of mine has more sensible reasons for disliking her, calling her a "carpetbagger," someone who had no business running for Congress in the state of New York, having come from Arkansas. But I break it down to two main problems that Hillary has, starting with one she can't help, and another she can. The first is her previous career as the First Lady. In many parts of society, Hillary is remembered as a First Lady who tried to redefine a position that no one wanted redefined. When the former President announced that Hillary would be his partner in setting the legislative agenda, traditionally-minded Americans blanched. Many of them thought that Hillary should "stay home and bake cookies," as she famously remarked. After seeing the grandmotherly visages of former First Ladies Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush, and observing how they deferred publicly to their powerful husbands, America may not have been ready for a First Lady who didn't just pay lip service to the idea of gender equality. Or, perhaps it was simply a case of, "Who elected her, anyway?" It may be too simple to define people's reactions to the former First Lady as pure sexism, but certainly sexism played a part (not to mention the goofy homophobia described above.) As mentioned, her past career as the First Lady and people's reactions to it are nothing she can change. But her image, which is that of a charmless, heartless political operative, is. I took it as a hopeful sign when she recently joked about her ability to deal with "evil, bad men, " an obvious jibe at her famous husband. Hillary will never be the charmer that Bill Clinton was and is (few people ever could be,) but if she loosens up and shows the more human, compassionate side of herself, the side that wrote "It Takes a Village," she will have a much better chance at winning over those who may have the wrong impression of her. A more relaxed, energetic Hillary, combined with her foreign policy and legislative experience and the enthusiastic support of her husband, could be a great alternative to the charming yet inexperienced Barack Obama, D-IL, and the retread candidate John Edwards, D-SC. Combine that with her new antiwar stance, and it may even be enough to carry her past authentic national heroes Rudy Giuliani, R-NY, or John McCain, R-AZ. Those two, Iraq hawks both, will have trouble convincing a war-weary America that staying in Iraq is worth the cost in lives and treasure, and if Hillary Clinton stays on message against the war, she has an excellent chance. The only thing that could derail her is the prejudice of certain Americans against her and her husband. Click here for a related article.

Senators and noted Iraq hawks John McCain, R-AZ, and Joe Lieberman, I-CT.