Pragmatism, who wins?

Like Bob Dylan's description of "John Wesley Harding," President Obama is never known to make a foolish move. Of course, if you're a critic of Obama, you'll be howling about that statement because you think every move he makes is foolish, but I don't want to talk about the differing views on his strategy, goals or results. Here I'm using "foolish" to mean "rash."

It seems to me that every move this president makes -- whether I agree or disagree with it -- has been "well thought out" or possibly even "carefully planned." But this careful consideration is damping down the boldness of hope that supporters saw in him during the campaign. (Governing is different from campaigning, but that's a truism I think the president probably can't afford to heed.)

Obama didn't start campaigning on "it's the economy, stupid," as Bill Clinton did in the 1992 campaign. Obama began making noises about running for president as an opponent of the war in Iraq -- which to some degree influenced the way the economy went, but that's a story for another time. However, he had to change his tune along the campaign trail because the spectacular collapse of the American economy ultimately was the only issue that mattered at the end of 2008.

From that point on, Obama has been greatly compromised. To counter accusations that he was simply "too green" (and I don't mean "environmentalist") to handle the presidency, he has courted -- particularly on his economic team -- people who have credentials. As the Washington Post pointed out in a September 2008 article, Timothy Geithner was a partner with then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in engineering the Bush administration's response to the collapse of the financial industry. With Geithner now subbing for Paulson in the Obama administration, we still have two-thirds of that power trio playing the same tune, when it comes to bailing out the economy. (There's a conspiracy debate on whether Goldman Sachs, from whose loins Paulson sprung, is the puppeteer behind every bubble and bust of recent memory. See Matt Taibbi's article "The Great American Bubble Machine," from the July 9 issue of Rolling Stone and Matthew Malone's article in Conde Nast Portfolio.)

You could almost hear the president's pragmatic, political, community-organizing wheels turning. Let's see, the economic crisis opens doorways to revisiting a host of ills with price tags on them: the cost of defense, the cost of health care, the security costs of dependence on international oil markets to supply energy to fuel the economy, the costs of global warming, etc.

His argument? Now is the time to address these issues with new thinking instead of politics as usual, to clear away programs from the past that no longer work, and to make way for programs that create a more secure and prosperous future.

For instance, there's stimulus money to help alternative energy projects, which the administration hopes will create tons of jobs domestically in the near and long terms. It's a very pragmatic response that makes sense within the terms of its own argument, but the devil (and all the arguments) are with the details of what will be favored and funded.

Similarly pragmatic is the administration's global warming response. Rather than tax companies to limit carbon emissions -- because "tax" is such an unpalatable word -- the White House preferred to push "cap and trade." Cap and trade offers a "free market" solution, with all the potential for graft, corruption, market manipulation, influence peddling and economic roller-coaster rides fueled by speculative markets. A carbon tax's effect on the economy and on carbon emissions would be more clearly measurable and controllable, but it's pragmatically (politically) unpalatable. (Look at these analyses from very different POVs by Robert J. Samuelson, a Washington Post columnist, and Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist.) Will cap and trade with all its potential pitfalls produce the desired results? Maybe, but cap and trade looks more like the administration trying to have it both ways -- to look tough on the environment while giving opponents great power to shape the solution. The need for solutions is urgent, but all that they're able to push through because of the slow-grinding gears of politics is Band-Aids.

I think the health insurance debate is the biggest sign yet that the administration is eventually going to rue its pragmatism as it tries to get something, anything done. President Obama wants to create a "public option" of health insurance that would compete with the private sector. Some of the critics, economic conservatives who routinely argue that the government is fundamentally incapable of being well-run, suddenly argue that the private sector would be unable to compete with the badly run government when it comes to providing health insurance. What does that say about how well-run the current free-market health-insurance system is?

Those who argue that administrative costs that drive up the price of health insurance would be drastically reduced in a single payer system -- a system that conservatives and libertarians (they're not the same thing although their thinking may at times align) tend to decry as "socialist" -- are disappointed in Obama, seeing the public option as a timid attempt to mollify free market capitalists. (See what Obama's former doctor has to say about the public option in this article from Forbes.)

Blue Dog Democrats, fatigued with the rising costs of government that have their constituents rightly worried, have been notable opponents in forestalling action on health insurance.

So compromise and pragmatism are leading to inaction and inertia. Remember when the economic firestorm began in earnest in the fourth quarter of 2008? A vast array of free market capitalists (Bernanke and Paulson come to mind as two, Geithner has been a public-sector guy his whole career) suddenly became believers in Keynesian economics (I know the Libertarian Party didn't; they have a strong faith), which essentially says that when economic chaos erupts, the government needs to take action to restore order. (Actually, it would be a more correct summary -- but less "guy I'd like to have a beer with" talk -- to say that Keynesian economics suggest that the government needs to manage markets to keep free market entropy from becoming macroeconomic chaos. Free market capitalists tend to believe that the markets are self-correcting and that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet every now and then, so we're better off with the occasional chaos, no matter how deep the collapse, than with having the government regulate the economy.)

Every action, including maintaining the status quo, has its downside, but what's the upside of the status quo? Everybody complains about health insurance, but nobody does anything about it.

That may be the most foolish move of all.

Copyright © 2009, Salvatore Caputo

Two kings

The Michael Jackson circus continues, and I'm jumping belatedly into the ring. It's sad to see a talented person die, especially when he peaked so early and suffered such a long decline.

Sure, Jackson was a pop star from an early age, and one of the few to become more popular in his adulthood than in his youth. He didn't suffer Frankie Lymon's fate.

However, there's no question that his best work was in the early 1980s with the mega-selling albums "Off the Wall" and "Thriller." They were his first two albums after becoming free of Motown, and most of the rest of his career was spent trying to figure out how to top (or even match) that opening salvo's creativity and excitement, but whether he recorded with producer Quincy Jones (who in addition to "Off the Wall" and "Thriller," also produced "Bad") or with producers like Teddy Riley in an effort to update his sound -- there was always a sense that the subsequent albums were retreads of "Thriller."

And what's the reward anyway for creating the best-selling album of all time ("Thriller"), being an eye-popping dancer, and elevating the music video from a clumsy promotional item to an opus in its own right?

Life in a bubble.

To be fair, Jackson had no real childhood, working from well before he became a star at age 11. Perhaps his family could say "no" to him, but once Jackson was on his own, he was surrounded by functionaries who had to say "yes." He never could visit a supermarket or a movie like you or I could. Fans would surround and demand.

Jackson's story is a lot like his former father-in-law's -- Elvis Presley. Presley got his privacy at "Graceland," surrounding himself with his "Memphis Mafia," while Jackson's bubble was "Neverland." Did he see himself ironically as Peter Pan or did he romanticize Peter Pan's never growing up? We'll never know because no one asked what he actually thought about anything. The questions were all about life as a celebrity.

Presley was known as "The King" -- short for "The King of Rock and Roll" much to the bemusement of folks like Chuck Berry -- but Jackson claimed even bigger ground, being crowned "The King of Pop," of which rock is only a subset.

The success of both depended on the complex history of race relations in America. Elvis' initial popularity was based on his being a white man who sang like a black man. Jackson proved that a black man singing like a black man could be even bigger than The King. It was a sign of how times had changed.

Both Presley and Jackson had hits with songs that dealt directly with race: Presley with "In the Ghetto" and Jackson with "Black or White."

"Black or White" is the more interesting of the two because of Jackson's changing complexion. He claimed his skin lightened because of vitiligo, a disease in which the skin's pigment slowly disappears. Generally speaking, vitiligo creates patches of pale skin. The Mayo Clinic says, "Medical treatments for vitiligo aim to even out skin tone, either by restoring color (pigment) or by destroying the remaining color." Jackson denied that he did the latter, but it's very unlikely that vitiligo would have left him with such an even skin tone over his whole face. So if he did whiten his skin, did he really believe "it doesn't matter if you're black or white"? It may be the most interesting and personal question posed by his songs, which lyrically are as impersonal as his performance and music was passionate.

He didn't have life experience outside the bubble, and it shows in the paranoia of "Billie Jean" and "Beat It." "We are the World," which he co-wrote with Lionel Richie, when you get down to it is little more than a commercial jingle. It's anthemic, yes, but doesn't say much. The single was a sensation because of all the performers who joined to sing on it, including icons Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, and because the cause of providing relief to famine victims in Ethiopia was so compelling. It also made charity another form of American instant gratification: Buy a record and end world hunger. (By the way, the USA for Africa Foundation still exists and is still fighting poverty and hunger.)

Although Presley had various co-songwriting credits through contracts that his manager, Col. Tom Parker, foisted on songwriters through the years, Presley admitted that he could not write a song. Depending on outside songwriters helped pierce the bubble and let Presley tackle songs about a variety of scenarios that were outside his experience, like "In the Ghetto."

Presley was 42 when he died in 1977, and Jackson was just 50, which some say is the new 40.

Allegations that doctor-assisted use of prescription drugs that may not have been necessary and may have helped cause their premature deaths are similar. In both cases, the stories suggest the doctors had a murky sense of ethics or were unable to say "no" to their famous patients. (Looking at medical ethics statements issued by the American Medical Association over the years actually hints that the relationship and service offered by a physician is much more complicated than most people believe and that a physician may ethically say "yes" depending on their judgment of the situation.)

It's unclear from the historical record whether Jackson dubbed himself the King of Pop or whether it was a name imposed on him. But when he married Lisa Marie Presley, it seemed clear that he understood the iconography of American pop and that he wanted to create a dynasty, lending legitimacy to his reign as the King of Pop by marrying the King's daughter.

Jackson also named one of his children Prince Michael. If that seems odd to you, think about this, it's a combination of George Foreman naming his children after himself (Jackson's daughter is Paris Michael) and taking the name of another pop star, Prince, into the dynasty. Prince is Prince's actual first name (he was born Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958, so he had just turned 51 when Jackson died).

Prince was also the only serious challenger to Michael Jackson's rhythm and blues throne at the time when Jackson was at his peak. Prince's "1999" and "Purple Rain," released during "Thriller's" long run on the pop charts were outsold by Jackson, but nonetheless, "Purple Rain" was a 10 million seller, and only a few recording artists besides Jackson have hit such a sales milestone.

Who knows how the dynasty will continue? However, much like Elvis' posthumous career, Jackson's will feature a ton of repackagings of already released material, rehearsal material for the shows he was planning to put on in London (like Elvis' posthumously released final tour film) and who knows how many rarities and unreleased recordings landing in the marketplace over the coming months and years, making Jackson, like Elvis, one of the hardest-working dead men in show business, for sure.

Copyright © 2009, Salvatore Caputo