End of the Bubba Curse?

Violence at a 1977 KKK march -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
It's time to reflect a little bit on some prior posts. I actually have some corrections to make -- one of them I'm very glad to make.

END OF THE BUBBA CURSE

In "The South has Risen Again", I basically reiterated the George Will view that only "bubba" (white, Baptist, southern) men could win the Presidency as representatives of the Democratic Party. The thinking has been that since Kennedy was elected in 1960, and partly due to the Civil Rights Act passed subsequently by Johnson, all the Democrat Presidents (and even the most recent Republican President) have conformed to the Bubba profile. They all speak with a twang and might have "gone fishin'" for the weekend.

Obama has thoroughly trounced this rule -- he is a black Chicagoan; furthermore, he's a sitting senator, not a governor. He speaks good, eloquent English -- nothing like the mangled Texan language of Bush or the good 'ol boy homilies of Bill Clinton. America has been represented by Texas or Arkansas for the last 16 years -- hardly places of erudition or tolerance. Let us please now have a break, a very long break from presidential bubba-dom.

HENRY PAULSON

When the market melted down two months ago, it looked like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was being proactive about a rescue plan -- I gave him a fairly glowing tribute. After reviewing other economists and commentators views of Paulson, I may have spoken too soon. Paul Krugman (who has recently garnered a Nobel for economics) dissed Paulson and I hoped at the time that it was just a grudge match of some sort between the two men.

Now, financial analysts Dylan Ratigan and Jim Cramer have chimed in to bolster Krugman's argument. Apparently Paulson was one of the very people that allowed investment banks to develop highly risky portfolios -- some of them knowing that they could be paid up front and transfer the risk on to others. This is a sublimated form of THEFT and should not be tolerated in any civilized financial trade system. Then, Ratigan, Cramer and other have thrown a spotlight on what they see as a "raid" on the $700 billion bail-out fund. Wall Street is using the money to pay executive bonuses. Rather than US taxpayers having any say, it's somewhat the reverse. The bailout money is feeding "the Beast" that got us into trouble already.

If these assessments are true, it would be shame on Mr. Paulson and Godspeed to the Obama transition.

OVERALL

The nation is in awe of itself, rightfully so, that we just elected a black President. As cartoonist Toles pointed out, we have just ratified a portion the Constitution two days ago -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal". Let's hope that the nation stays the course this time, but not in the Bushian sense of that phrase.

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