Month: August 2008

Right The First Time

The evolution of the McCains’ adoption story to involve the direct intervention of Mother Teresa can actually be traced to between 2004 and 2008. On the still-functioning McCain 2000 website in 2004, the text read:

During one of those missions, on a visit to Mother Teresa’s Orphanage Cindy agreed to bring two babies in need of medical attention back to the United States.

By 2008, it had been changed as follows:

On one of those missions, Mother Teresa convinced Cindy to take two babies in need of medical attention to the United States.

Yes, Pushkin!

A reader writes:

Your reader couldn’t be more wrong. When Russian dissidents and democracy advocates gathered bravely in the late sixties and early seventies, frequently led by Elena Bonner and Andrei Sakharov, they had a favorite place–before the statue of Pushkin on Pushkin Square in central Moscow.  They would stand quiet vigil before the great poet, and read some lines of his poetry gathering strength and resolve from it, and remembering that the Russia that crushed freedom in Prague and trampled demonstrators in Vilnius, Baku and Tbilisi was not the only Russia.  There was a richer tradition and vision to be safeguarded.

Pushkin, who was descended from a dark-skinned servant of Peter the Great and was proud of his exotic part-African heritage, is the greatest of Russia’s poets and he presents the most noble vision of what it means to be Russian–a generosity of spirit, graciousness and liberality in dealing with foreigners that reflects the very antithesis of the soul-less KGB man now at the nation’s helm. He shared the Romanticist fascination with the Caucasus, and no Georgian would ever resent his voice being heard at a time like this one. There is a wonderful poetic tradition in Georgia, but not much of it in English translation. Though Boris Pasternak translated a great deal of it into Russian. Chavchavadze is the winner from the Pushkin era, I think.

Obama And Rubin, Ctd.

A reader writes:

A few tidbits on Mr. Rubin: 1. Citgroup was one of the lead lobbying entities in the late-90’s for the repeal of Glass-Steagel.

2. That legislation passed in Oct-1999 and reversed 60+ plus years of U.S. policy, led to a huge roll-up in the financial services industry where commercial banking, investment banking, brokerages and insurance services (the Citi-Travelers merger was about the largest) were brought under one roof (precisely what Glass-Steagel was designed to preclude) and was and is a significant underlying factor in the mess going on today.

3. Rubin went to work for Citigroup a short time after the repeal of Glass-Steagel passed and was in an upper tier management role while alot of the excesses being dealt with today were accumulated (and Citigroup is among the most afflicted).

   4. While a sharp guy, Rubin is and has always been the quintessential Limo-Liberal.

   5. Wall Street and the financial services biz OWNS Congress at this point. The last thing we need is another Rubin or Paulson running things in the economic realm at the White House.