Op-Ed

AUSTIN, Texas -- Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have gone and gotten themselves in big trouble. For those of you who do not follow the business pages, I only wish we were talking about pregnant teen-agers. Fannie and Freddie are the two government-sponsored mortgage companies that help most of us buy homes. Trouble is, they've run themselves into big-time debt -- they've doubled the amount they owe in just the last five years. When I say big-time, try $2 trillion. And guess who's on the hook if these things go under? Congratulations, taxpayers.

            This week, Alan Greenspan, the Great Pooh-Bah of the financial world, opined in his usual Delphic style before the Senate Banking Committee, "To fend off possible future systemic difficulties, which we assess as likely if the expansion continues unabated, preventive actions are required sooner rather than later." The Wall Street Journal helpfully translates this as, "Act quickly." Hard to tell with Greenspan: I yield to the Journal's long experience in Greenspan translation, but it could also mean, "Push the panic button now!"

AUSTIN, Texas -- With so many delights on our political plate, it's hard to know where to begin. Take that knee-slapping joke by Education Secretary Rod Paige: He called our largest teachers' union "a terrorist organization." In fun, of course. Gosh darn, HEE-HAW! All over the nation, teachers are just chuckling away.

            Paige is upset with the National Education Association because it is lobbying in Washington to give states more flexibility and more money in meeting the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. If that makes the NEA a terrorist organization, what does it make the Utah legislature, where its House of Representatives voted 64 to 8 not to comply with any provisions of the law not fully financed by the federal government? And how are we to categorize the Virginia House of Delegates, which voted 98 to 1 to ask Congress to exempt Virginia from the law?

"It's my right to run."  

This is Ralph Nader's core case in announcing his 2004 presidential candidacy. Yes, Nader has a legal right to do this. He also has a legal right to donate $100,000 to the Republican Party and become a Bush Pioneer. That doesn't make it a good idea.

So much of Nader's career has been built on reminding us of our common ties. It's not ok, he's argued, for companies to make unsafe cars, pollute our air, or pillage shared resources. Actions have consequences, he's pointed out with persistence and eloquence.

The saga of Howard Dean is a cautionary tale about politics and the Internet. His campaign rode a big wave of cyberspace hype -- and then sank.

There are valid complaints to be made about Dean’s rough handling by major news outlets this winter. Sometimes the coverage was unfair. But what gained him media prominence in the first place was journalistic infatuation with his campaign’s successful use of the Internet for outreach and fund-raising.

Actually, Dean burst onto the nation’s front pages because of money. As far as political journalists were concerned, Dean came into his own as a presidential contender midway through 2003. In the second quarter of the year, he raised $7.5 million -- including $800,000 on a single dramatic day.

In sync with the aphorism that money is the mother’s milk of politics, the former Vermont governor seemed to have found a cash cow on the Internet. The ability to raise large sums from many online devotees caused the political press corps to sit up and take notice.

After several decades as one of America’s great public-interest advocates, Ralph Nader has developed an extraordinary response when people say they don’t think he should run for president in 2004.

     During a Feb. 4 interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered” program, Nader had this to say when asked about an editorial in The Nation urging him not to run this year: “It’s a marvelous demonstration by liberals, if you will, of censorship. Now mind you, running for political office is every American’s right. Running for political office means free speech exercise, it means exercising the right of petition, the right of assembly. And so when they say ‘Do not run,’ they’re not just challenging and rebutting; they’re crossing that line into censorship, which is completely unacceptable.”

     News anchor Melissa Block followed up: “Wouldn’t censorship, though, be if anyone were physically preventing you from running? They’re not saying that you can’t run; they’re asking you not to. They’re asking you to make that decision for what they consider to be the greater good of the country.”

AUSTIN, Texas -- Friends of liberty, raise hell! To the barricades, or at least to the post office and the emails. A British citizen named Katharine Gun faces two years in prison for revealing that the U.S. National Security Agency tried -- and succeeded -- in getting the Brits to help us with illegal spying operations at the United Nations. The targets were the delegations of the six countries on the U.N. Security Council that were undecided on how to vote on the critical Iraqi war resolution.

            Now, there are two schools of reaction to this tawdry, slimy little spy episode: It was illegal, immoral and wrong, and Katharine Gun should get a medal for exposing it. Or, some are shocked, shocked to hear of spying at the U.N., where it is apparently only slightly less common than dirt.

            Well, if it wasn't much of a secret to begin with, why is this woman going to prison for telling the truth? Give her a medal anyway.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Just for the record, since the record is in considerable peril. These are Orwellian days, my friends, as the Bush administration attempts to either shove the history of the second Gulf War down the memory hole or to rewrite it entirely. Keeping a firm grip on actual historical fact, all of it easily within our imperfect memories, is not that easy amid the swirling storms of misinformation, misremembering and misstatement. But since the war itself stands as a monument to what happens when we let ourselves get stampeded by a chorus of disinformation, let's draw the line right now.

            According to the 500-man American team that spent hundreds of millions of dollars looking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, there aren't any and have not been any since 1991.

LONDON -- In a way, it was heartbreaking to watch the Mother of Parliaments deal with half of a particularly nasty problem in an impressive way. It was sad and depressing for an American because the United States seems so unable even to begin to address the first half of the same problem -- how and why were we so badly misled about the reasons for going to war with Iraq. Did our leaders lie to us, knowingly distort or exaggerate? Or was their own intelligence that bad, and if so, why? And why isn't something being done about it.

Engaged in a continuous PR blitz, presidential campaign strategists always strive to portray their candidate as damn near perfect. Even obvious flaws are apt to be touted as signs of integrity and human depth. Such media spin encourages Americans to confuse being excellent with being preferable.

     Eager to dislodge George W. Bush from the White House, many voters lined up behind John Kerry in late January. It’s true that the junior senator from Massachusetts is probably the best bet to defeat Bush -- and, as president, Kerry would be a very significant improvement over the incumbent. But truth in labeling should impel acknowledgment that Kerry is not a progressive candidate.

            AUSTIN, Texas -- Philanthropy may not be high on your list of Stuff to Think About -- except maybe to hope that some might be headed your way. But political philanthropy is in fact playing a large role in your life -- indeed, it is shaping the entire nation's life to an extent that deserves to be put on your list of Stuff to Think About.

            The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy is an outfit "committed to making philanthropy more responsive to people with the least wealth and opportunity." You probably thought that's what philanthropy was -- money to help people with the least wealth and opportunity. But to an amazing extent, you would be wrong. A report by the Responsive Philanthropy folks points out that more and more foundations and corporations are instead giving their money to conservative think tanks, which in turn use the money to push the right-wing political agenda.