Shots in the Dark

With all the gloom and doom going on in the world, on Wall Street, in Washington, and so on…why not make time for a hilariously bad video?

So…here you are. The song: “Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone).” (The parentheses are crucial.) The band: Glass Tiger, from Canada.

The time? Well, I’ll give you one decade guess.

Some hints. Think: mullets. Shoulder pads. Child trumpeteers. Canadians trying to dance. Bass solos. The Brian Adams vocal cameo.

The ’80s were, in some respects, shockingly innocent, weren’t they?

ABC News reports on one specific proposal that McCain has to reform Wall Street—or at least one provided by one of McCain’s aides: To stop “multi-million dollar payouts” to CEOs like his adviser/token woman Carly Fiorina, he would allow a company’s shareholders to vote on executive compensation.

Where to start?

First of all, it is simply bizarre to hear a Republican propose such a profoundly intrusive economic idea. I suppose McCain’s okay with that, but will his base be?

Second, it’s just a silly idea. No corporation would voluntarily agree to this, as it would certainly impede their ability to conduct business and to hire the best executives they can. (Imagine if Harvard alums got to vote on Drew Faust’s pay.)

And the idea that the federal government could mandate such a plan—well, I don’t know if that’s technically possible, but it would never, ever happen.

This is not a credible economic reform…..

A couple days ago I wrote that Carly Fiorina should never be asked to comment on anything, no matter how trivial, ever again. If a butterfly flapped its wings in China, Carly Fiorina should say nothing.

Well. After Fiorina told an interviewer that neither John McCain or Sarah Palin could run a company—”I don’t think John McCain could run a major corporation,” she actually said (but hey, neither could she)— the McCain campaign has realized that Fiorina exile is a good idea.

“[One] campaign source said Fiorina would be discouraged from additional media interviews.

Another top campaign adviser was far less diplomatic.

“Carly will now disappear,” this source said.

This is fine. But let’s just remember how weird it is that the McCain campaign was trotting out this former CEO—a terrific example of the kind of greed McCain is currently railing against—as a credible economic adviser. Fiorina was paid $21 million to leave her job at Hewlett-Packard…..

Obama’s leading in the polls again.

(Not because of this, but I have never in my life so distrusted presidential polling as I do in this election.)

The Times and the Post both have pieces about John McCain’s struggle to look like he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the economy.

Here’s this from the TImes:

His first big speech on the mortgage crisis warned against excessive government intervention; a month later he released his plan for government action to help people keep their homes.

…Mr. McCain’s economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told reporters Tuesday that the senator, who has often favored deregulation, would push for new regulations as president.

And this from WashPo:

A decade ago, Sen. John McCainembraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth.

Both newspapers are correct, of course, to point out the reversal in McCain’s position, and to suggest that the reversal connotes a lack of fluency in economic issues. They clearly are not McCain’s forte.

But another point to make, I think, is what does McCain really mean when he talks about “reforming” Wall Street? What new regulations would he actually recommend?

Because, let’s face it, this is a pretty complicated situation. (One reason why McCain first favored establishing a commission to study the crisis, then gave that up when Obama rightly blasted the typical-Washingtonness of that response.) It won’t lend itself to simplistic solutions.

Moreover, so far as we know, no one at Lehman Brothers or AIG broke the law—they just (yes) got greedy and made bad decisions.

I raise the point because McCain is basing his candidacy on the idea of “reform,” a term he throws around like chicken feed. Sarah Palin will reform Washington just like she did Alaska! (YIkes.)

But what exactly does reform mean, and how would McCain-Palin accomplish that?

As carefully as I’ve paid attention, I’ve never heard him come close to addressing the specifics which should underlie the generalities of his campaign.

The Times Square headquarters of Lehman Brothers, 8:39, Tuesday night

The Crimson reports that Professor J. Lorand Matory is leaving Harvard for Duke.

An anthropologist, Matory was one of Larry Summers’ most vocal critics, and also an outspoken critic of Israel whose pro-Palestinian opinions rubbed some people the wrong way.

“I think it’s the best thing that’s happened to Harvard in a long time,” [Alan Dershowitz] said in a phone interview yesterday. “

Given how Harvard generally responds to attempts by other universities to poach their professors—and given the University’s sensitivity to the paucity of African-Americans on its faculty—Matory (who is black) can rightly consider it a diss that Harvard did not attempt to compete with Duke’s bid.

Matory said that Harvard did not respond to Duke’s offer with a comparable position or salary.

“The letter of reply was polite but acknowledged only what is favorable about my leaving,” Matory said of the counter-offer from Dean of the Faculty Michael D. Smith.

Harvard may now have a race problem on its hands: it just lost its first “diversity dean,” Lisa Martin, who headed to the University of Wisconsin (frankly, probably a much kinder place than Harvard), who criticized FAS dean Michael Smith as lacking a commitment to diversity.

Matory echoed the sentiment:

In light of diversity dean Lisa L. Martin’s departure from Harvard, he said he thought that Smith was not committed to hiring a diverse Faculty.

“Maybe there is a pattern,” he said. “Maybe Dean Smith doesn’t seem to have found a way to commit himself to this principle as of yet.”

And then there’s that investigation into police racism.

I will give Harvard a piece of advice (I keep thinking Harvard is going to pay me for this stuff, or at least send me a thank-you note. But it never does!): In the world of journalism, three makes a trend. The university needs to be careful here….

Salon has a solid piece that someone in the MSM should have done by now on the role of Todd Palin in Sarah Palin’s gubernatorial administration.

(Though to be fair, the Times did report a couple of days ago that Todd Palin would help his wife go over the state budget and decide where they wanted to cut and where they wanted to increase funds.)

Todd appears to have had an unusually strong role, the extent of which remains unclear. He is not on the state payroll and was never elected — but the First Dude has crossed over from the standard-issue supportive political spouse to something far more influential, weighing in on policy and political matters in ways that few observers seem to understand. His apparent influence in his wife’s administration — some in Alaska have referred to him as the “shadow governor” — has raised questions about whether a Sarah Palin vice-presidency would hand the same type of backstage power to Todd, and what that might mean in the running of the U.S. government.

….Sarah Palin has used a private e-mail address on most of the e-mails her husband was copied on, and reportedly was advised by aides that such nonofficial communications could be protected from potential subpoena. Legislators and political insiders in Alaska say a small circle of trusted Palin aides keep most decisions and deliberations close to the vest, with Todd Palin among them.

The more you learn about Sarah Palin, the creepier she gets.

Y’all saw Tina Fey do her Sarah Palin impression, right?

And thought it was pretty funny, I imagine.

Well, here comes Carly Fiorina, disgraced former CEO of Hewlett Packard and now McCain campaign toadie, saying that she thinks Fey’s impersonation was “sexist.”

...they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial. I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes, I would say, sexist in the sense that just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance. She has a lot of substance.

Can we agree that Carly Fiorina should never, ever be asked to comment on anything of national importance? Or, for that matter, unimportance? Just, like, nothing at all?

If you must punish yourself, here’s the video.

Apparently so. Because that’s what it takes for Palin to say this:

“Too often, the government gets in the way when innovators take on cancer or Parkinson’s or Alzheimers.”

Palin opposes federal funding of stem cell research…..