In the movie classic, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” there is a moment when the terminally ill family patriarch, played by Burl Ives, unexpectedly walks into the drawing room of his southern mansion and finds his two grown children and their mates quarreling among themselves about how they will split things up upon his death.
There is a moment of hanging quiet as they realize that he has heard them talking about him. Not having picked up the entire conversation, but knowing that he is on the carpet, Ives, in his heavy authoritarian voice, declares, “I smell mendacity in this room.”
After listening for months on end to the race for the White House as it has narrowed down to the remaining candidates, Obama and McCain, I also declare that, “I smell mendacity in this room.” Although one might think that McCain and Obama are as far apart as their ages, there is, in one respect, not even spitting distance between the two.
They each have or have had on their teams, key advisors who played a direct role in the developing financial debacle. As to Obama, mortgage executive Franklin Delano Raines is said to have “taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing matters," according to http://www.realclearpolitics.com/. Raines was chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae and walked off after earning $99 million in three years.
For McCain, it’s economic advisor Phil Gramm, the former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. He led the fight to successfully poison financial markets by dismantling laws which separated banking, insurance and brokerage activities. Gramm got his reward by subsequently landing a job as vice-chairman for Swiss-based UBS investment bank.
The choice of these men and others like them for campaign advice underscores that both McCain and Obama have put personal relationships ahead of good judgment. There is no evidence that it will be any different when one of them is in the White House.
No comments:
Post a Comment