Un poeta loco

THE FIRST CEO PRESIDENT DESERVES A PINK SLIP

For years, I’ve been trying to convince diehard Bush fans (the 30% that still think he’s the best thing since twist-off beer caps) that he’s the worst president in history.

For years, I’ve been banging my head against a closed door (that’s a metaphor for Bush’s supporters’ minds), hoping that the person on the other side would open the door (again, metaphor for mind) and realize that Bush has been truly a horrible president.

Silly me! As it turns out, I’ve been wrong all this time. Bush’s isn’t the worst president in our country's history, he’s merely the worst CEO – Ken Lay included.

In the interest of disclosure, I can’t take credit for the reclassification – or even the evaluation.

The credit belongs to Warren Hellman, founder and CEO of Hellman & Friedman, a private equity investment firm.

In addition to sitting on the boards of the NASDAQ Stock Market, Levi Strauss & Co. and the Sugar Bowl Corporation, Hellman consults with corporate boards on evaluation CEO performance.

You might say he helps boards decide when it’s time for a CEO to go bye-bye. According to Hellman, Bush’s time has come.

Hellman published his analysis in an article in Salon magazine.

In a nutshell, Hellman says, “If the United States were a company, if would be a troubled one. A disastrous war in Iraq; another war nearly won, now at risk in Afghanistan; massive budget deficits -- USA Inc. is beset by many crises.”

Fair enough. No one, except possibly Dick Cheney, believes things are going hunky-dory in the United States. The question, then, becomes, to what extent are the company’s, uh country’s problems Bush’s fault.

Hellman judges Bush’s performance based on six criteria, the same criteria he uses when advising boards on evaluating their CEOs’ performance: 1) fiscal responsibility, 2) strategic decisions, 3) execution of strategic decisions, 4) personnel choices, 5) research and development, and 6) adherence to the company’s charter and bylaws.

So how did Bush the CEO do? The short answer: “If Bush were the chief executive of a company, he would in all likelihood be given a good pension and quickly replaced.”

How’s $210 million? That’s what Home Depot paid former CEO Robert L. Nardelli forcing him to resign for failing to turn around the company’s poor stock performance.

I don’t know about you, but I’d pay $210 million dollars to get rid of Bush. Heck, I’d even pay $211 million.

In the first category, “fiscal responsibility,” Hellman criticizes Bush for squandering the surplus he inherited from his predecessor, record deficits, a “skyrocketing” debt service, and a growing trade deficit with China. More importantly, he accuses Bush of “hid[ing] the magnitude of the [company’s] losses.”

Isn’t that what Ken Lay was convicted of?

As for the second category, “strategic decisions,” he faults Bush for “minimize[ing] the importance of stabilizing Afghanistan, while at the same time choosing to invade Iraq,” adding, “Those choices turned out to be a perfect example of the adage ‘fire, aim, ready!’”

“Not only were those decisions based on faulty intelligence,” he writes, “but Bush also had no business plan for his new endeavor.”

In the third category, “execution of strategic decisions,” Hellman concludes, “Bush has left USA Inc. with no good options as to how to fix the [Iraq] problem. If USA Inc. were a corporation, an effective board would almost certainly not choose to ask the executive who got the company into such dangerous trouble to be the one extricate it; the board would find a new CEO.”

For number four, “personnel decisions” he writes, “Excellent chief executives make excellent personnel choices; they are willing to admit mistakes and replace the occasional bad personnel choice with alacrity. This has not been the case with our chief executive.”

"Instead," Hellman says, “Bush stuck too long with his mistakes, remaining stubbornly supportive of inept individuals from Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld…”

Number five: “Because of the strategic error of invading Iraq, our CEO now finds his company can't spend money on conducting basic research or rebuilding its physical infrastructure, plus it is drastically shortchanging its educational system.

In the final category, “adherence to the company’s charter and bylaws,” Hellman chastises Bush for “allow[ing] his ideology to subvert the charter and bylaws this country was built on, namely the Constitution.”

So what should the board of directors do?

“When a company is going in the wrong direction, the board of directors has the responsibility to do everything possible to change course and move forward with better direction. […] For the past six years, Congress has abandoned that role,” Hellman says, adding, “If [Congress] were a corporate board of directors, there might well be shareholder lawsuits over how it has neglected its oversight responsibilities.”

The $211 million is starting to look better by the minute.

WHY DOES GEORGE BUSH AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HATE THE TROOPS?

Every time I hear a Republican say anything about supporting the troops, I want to throw up. The Republican's treatment of troops during the first four years of Bush's war was negligent at best.

Not only did their failure of oversight lead to hundreds of deaths that could have been prevented if the Bush lapdogs had lifted one finger to provide adequate armor, thousands of others were critically wounded (many permanently) as a result of their refusal to give a shit. And now they are living, literally, in rat-infested quarters in what is supposed to be a rehabilitation hospital.

This situation was not created overnight. It was allowed to happen during the four years the Republican Congress was too busy kissing George Bush's ass to care about the troops.

It's easy to stand in front of television cameras and spout platitudes about patriotism and feign undying support for soldiers fighting their war, it's another to actually do something about their safety while refereeing a civil war, and taking care of them once they get home -- especially the critically wounded.

If you want to know what I'm talking about, read the Washington Post article here.

In the meantime, Lindsey Graham dares to question Democrats' patriotism and accuse them of undermining troop morale while his sorry ass has been bent over for George Bush for the last four years.

Does anyone else think that Leslie Jordan (featured left as Brother Boy from Sordid Lives) would be perfect to play Graham in a made-for-TV movie?

But what are 21,000 more soldiers?  In the end, it's a cost-benefit analysis:  billions of dollars in Iraqi oil versus a few thousand more lives. And if they're permanently disabled, just buy a few more rat-infested motels to dump 'em in.

What's George Bush's solution? Slash funds for veterans' health care over the next two years. Who cares if the number of wounded troops returning from his war in Iraq increases as funds to take care of them decreases!  That's money that could go to tax-cuts to the top 1% of Americans -- or to Exxon.

After all, in the Republican Party, it's enough to say you support the troops. No one expects you to mean it -- do they?  I didn't think so.

THANK GOD HE'S RETIRED

I just read retired Barstow Community College professor Richard Reeb’s opinion column entitled “Barstow High School needs to think twice about gay club," 

Ironically, the college's website boasts "an innovative learning environment that respects student diversity." 

Fortunately for Mr. Reeb, the homosexual agenda has not yet deprived Americans of their right to free speech – no matter how misguided. 

The privation of civil liberties, as we’ve seen in the last six years, is more of a Republican agenda than a homosexual one. Our agenda – yes, I’m gay – is not nearly as nefarious as Mr. Reeb would have you believe. Unless you can find harm in wanting children to have the right to live a life free of violence and harassment, to know that it is okay to accept who they are, and to realize that their sexuality is as much a part of their creation as their hair color.

I do not live in Barstow. I live in Dallas, Texas, a place where thousands of gay men and women move to escape small-town homophobia. I did, however, grow up in a small Oklahoma town.

There was no gay-straight or gay club in Sapulpa, Oklahoma in the 1970’s. Not only did I not know anyone gay, I didn’t even know the word. None of that stopped me from knowing my truth: I was gay.

No one molested me. No one lured into a secret lifestyle. I went to church. I sang in the choir. I listened to preachers condemn who I was.

Fortunately, my parents and my education instilled in me the intellect and the courage to accept one truth: God did not create me just to condemn me. According to people like Mr. Reeb, a person can alter his sexuality. That false premise is essential to their argument that homosexuality is unnatural – that what is unnatural is ungodly.

Indeed, a straight man could be made to have sex with another man, but that does not make him “gay.”  Some gay men have claimed to have been “cured” of homosexuality.  Regardless of what Ted Haggard would have us believe, it is not possible to be cured of homosexuality – in three weeks or three years.

In the end, changing sexualities is not unlike changing hair color: it eventually changes back to its natural state.

It is no surprise that Mr. Reeb uses the Bible as a means of defending his bigotry. Thousands  do. The biblical arguments are nothing new. Nor are they as absolute and definitive as Mr. Reeb would have you believe.

He uses the same arguments and warped interpretation of the Bible that religious bigots used to defend slavery, oppose granting Blacks equal rights, deny women the vote, oppose mixed-race marriages. Interestingly, this is the first time I’ve read an article written by a homophobe who has attempted to equate supporters of slavery with supporters of gay rights. It’s a novel, if not wholly specious, angle to an old argument.  

The bottom line is that the amount of violence and bigotry that “good Christians” have used to defend their un-Christian behavior is impressive in its frequency and abhorrence. 

While Leviticus 18:22 does refer to homosexual sex as an “abomination,” (Latin: abominatio from abominari or “to shun an ill omen”), St. Jerome uses a different word in Leviticus 20:13: nefas (Latin: “not lawful”). There is no explanation as to why he changes words. Both the Greek and the Hebrew are consistent.

The Hebrew word is toeyvah, which was used to refer to acts that were ritually unclean or impure. In Greek, it is rendered as bdelygma, which also refers to ritual impurity. Having sex with your wife while she is menstruating is considered toeyvah or bdlegyma.

I have no idea what Mr. Reeb’s views on that subject are. Far be it for me to ask him if he has been ritually impure. It would be inappropriate – not to mention none of my business – to ask. Yet he insists on making my sex life his business.

Interestingly, the Hebrew word zimah, which refers to acts that are considered immoral or evil, is not used to refer to homosexuality.  Murder was zimah, evil; homosexual sex was toeyvah, ritually impure.

I mention this with every expectation that Mr. Reeb will be totally unimpressed. I also mention it for those who, with an open mind, are willing to accept that the biblical position on homosexuality is not as open and shut as the King James Bible would have us believe.

In fact, the whole conversation is senseless. I am willing to accept that the ancient Hebrews viewed gay sex as ritually impure. There considered many acts impure. They also lacked the modern social and linguistic constructs that we have today. To discuss modern gay relationships in the context of a set of laws written 6000 years ago is beyond foolhardy.

It is one thing to accept that murder is as wrong today as it was 6000 years ago. Murder was then, and still is, zimah, evil. The notion of ritual impurity has no place in modern society – except, perhaps, among Orthodox Jews.

Fortunately, we don’t live by the Old Testament or Mosaic Law any longer – although many Christians wish that we did.  Some see them as essential to fulfilling end-time prophecy.  Others cling to them because they allow vengeance, bloodlust and righteous judgment – in short, man’s darkest and most un-Christian urges.

It is no surprise that Ted Haggard, the fallen evangelical mega-minister and former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, condemned homosexuality at the top of his lungs week after week, sermon and sermon. It was what he hated most in himself.

I wouldn’t presume to speak for Mr. Reeb.

Why Rick Perry has a sMerck on his face

When Rick Perry told a reporter in June, 2005 that gay and lesbian veterans returning home from Iraq could move somewhere else if they didn't like the new constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, "amens" could be heard emanating from churches all across Texas.

When Perry - Governor Goodhair as the late Molly Ivins dubbed him - told a group of religious supporters last November that non-Christians (read: Muslims) were going to hell, his remarks were received with applause.

When the governor signed an executive order last week bypassing the state legislature and sidestepping public hearings requiring mandatory vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV) for sixth-grade girls, the response from his conservative religious base was a collective "holy crap!"

To say that conservative Christians aren't happy would be an understatement. They are already making their displeasure known.

What isn't being said is as important as what is being said - on both sides of the debate.

"I am absolutely opposed that Merck and the state government are planning to inject young girls with a cancer-causing virus," said Cathie Adams of the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative family-values group that endorsed Rick Perry in November. 

No mention of the thousands of lives that will be saved by the "cancer-causing virus."

"The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer," Perry said in a prepared statement.

No mention of the billions of dollars Merck stands to make as a result of his order, or that his former chief of staff now works for Merck as a lobbyist.

The official line from the religious right is that the vaccine will turn virginal daughters into modern Jezebels - the same twisted logic it uses for opposing the morning-after pill to avoid unplanned pregnancies and condoms for stopping the spread of HIV.

For conservative Christians, the issue is black and white. For Perry, it's green. For me, you might be surprised.

The Libertarian in me has a hard time accepting the government's role in mandating the vaccine (government intrusion, Big Brother, mad scientists, etc.).

The pragmatist in me understands the obvious benefits (saving lives, reducing cancer-related health-care costs, etc.).

The cynic in me sees the long reach of big pharmaceutical and wonders how it will next flex its economic muscle in other public policy issues.

The sadist in me simply wants to sit back and watch it all play out.

So far, Perry isn't flinching. And why should he? Like George Bush, Perry, who can't run for reelection, has no reason to continue to pander to the religious right. All the more reason why the religious right is pitching a good old-fashioned hissy fit.

It was bad enough that the fundamentalists' savior, George W. Bush, who promised to overturn Roe v. Wade and outlaw gay marriage, didn't mention even one of their issues in his recent State of the Union address.

Never mind the fact that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice-President Dick Cheney, referred to her out-of-heterosexual-wedlock pregnancy with lesbian partner Heather Poe as a "blessing from God."

To say nothing of the fact that Republican religious right darling Marilyn Musgrave, who narrowly won reelection in November, has decided not to reintroduce the federal marriage amendment again this term.

If there were ever a reason to hold a tent revival, Chautauqua Assembly or Justice Sunday teleconference, this is it. 

In one stroke of the pen, Perry realized the religious right's worst nightmare: godless heathens imposing their secret agenda to turn young girls into whores of Babylon. Except the godless heathens were supposed to be liberals - not fellow conservatives.

As for secret agendas, the only agenda is Merck's rush to make an inside deal with as many states as possible before GlaxoSmithKline's own HPV vaccine receives final approval. Governor Perry is no stranger to behind-the-scenes deals. 

Last August, it was revealed that Perry's former legislative director was working for the Spanish company Cintra, which won the rights to develop the $7 billion Trans-Texas Corridor.  Then there's the executive order Perry signed to fast-track permits that would allow TXU to build 11 coal-burning (read: pollution) power plants in Texas - the same day former TXU chairman Erle Nye donated $2000 to Perry's campaign. That donation was soon followed by $5,000 from a TXU political action committee, then another $25,000 from Nye.

While both the Cintra and TXU deals were public knowledge before the November election, Perry was able to beat his Democratic opponent by ten percentage points, thanks in large part to conservative Christian voters who were more than willing to ignore a few shady deals provided Perry was willing to spew sufficient anti-gay hate speech to guarantee the passage of the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. 

As usual, most people are unable - or unwilling - to see beyond their own interests. 

The issue isn't whether the HPV vaccine is beneficial to public health. It is. Nor is it whether the vaccine will lead to promiscuity. No reliable study suggests that it will. It isn't even whether Perry is dumping his base after he used them to get re-elected. He is. 

The issue is whether Texas voters are comfortable with a governor who has a record of using his public office and the state’s resources to enrich a handful of well connected people.

According to the word on the street, there's a movement to draft Perry as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008. If it's true, just remember: you get what someone else pays for.