Page 1 of 2 Old bottles will test Obama's vintage
By Julian Delasantellis
"Change has come to America" US president-elect Barack Obama called out to
hundreds of thousands in Chicago's Grant Park on election night, and to
hundreds of millions watching on TV sets around the world, but just what does
that mean?
For Mike Steinberger, wine columnist for the online magazine Slate.com, the
change he hopes is coming to America is a better getting-wasted experience for
those attending official White House state dinners.
"The White House needs a new wine policy ... During the [George W] Bush era,
wine service at the executive mansion has been
hostage to a profoundly misguided strategy that has turned this most civilized
of beverages into an unnecessarily crude instrument of statecraft ... As with
so much else, the Bush administration has given Obama the opening he needs to
act swiftly and boldly on the wine front ... the White House currently stocks
around 500-600 bottles. That is pathetic and another example of how America's
infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate. "
Some critics say that the infrastructure spending in the upcoming stimulus bill
will be just thinly disguised appropriations to support congressional members'
re-election efforts, pejoratively called pork. This will obviously not be the
case here, this is the chardonnay to be served with the pork.
It is now a fairly commonplace assertion that during the past eight years the
Bush administration has denigrated diplomacy in favor of neo-conservative
swagger and braggadocio, but, according to Steinberger, the problem is less
Paul Wolfowitz, more putrid wine.
Both the US Air Force and US wine force are said to have become far too
enamored with shock and awe, with wines that Steinberger dismisses as "slam
dunks" ( an obvious reference to former Central Intelligence Agency director
George Tenet's pre-Iraq War assertion that it was a "slam dunk" that Saddam
Hussein was armed with weapons of mass destruction) and "bruisers".
At a state dinner for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a cabernet
sauvignon was served that, according to Steinberger, tasted "like sucking on
tree bark - it was obnoxiously oaky".
When I was in graduate school, I knew people who were studying for the US
Department of State's Foreign Service Officer exam. Bet this foreign relations
advice from Steinberger wasn't one of the questions.
"Diplomacy is a subtle art, and when it is conducted [at the table], it
requires subtle libations. Mellow wines promote conviviality, encourage
reflection, and create goodwill - the very things state dinners are presumably
meant to foster. A hulking cabernet that assaults the senses and flattens any
food that gets in its way hardly lubricates the path to world peace. Indeed,
serving such a wine might even be construed as a sign of hostile intent:
Tonight we smash your palate; tomorrow your palace."
During the campaign, Obama rivals such as Senator Hillary Clinton charged that
the Illinois senator was insufficiently detailed about his plans for changing
the country. Not Steinberger - he's very detailed on what must be done in this
time of crisis.
"So, what must Obama do? He can start by replenishing the White House cellar.
He's pledged to create or save 3 million jobs over the next two years; he
should set a goal of having 3,000 bottles laid away by the end of his first
term. An executive branch buying spree will once again give the presidency a
wine stash worthy of the office while also making a small but meaningful
contribution to the ailing economy. "
You should not think that all Americans have on their minds at this historic
time is the subprime merlot crisis. Over the past few weeks, on a call-in radio
program whose host and callers are usually very supportive of the new
president, spirited and heated criticisms were voiced on an issue now at the
front of the nation's attention.
Was Obama being raked over the coals for keeping Bush holdover Robert Gates on
as secretary of defense, or for trying to placate the Republican minority in
Congress by making tax cuts the single-largest line item in the upcoming
stimulus plan?
Not a chance, because few Americans actually care, or even know, about these
controversies. What's got America really interested and engaged these days is
what kind of puppy, coming from where, will soon be residing at the White
House.
At his Grant Park victory speech, Obama endeared himself to the hundreds of
millions of Americans who wouldn't know Tier 1 Capital from teardrop in-ground
swimming pools by promising his daughters Sasha and Malia a new puppy for going
through the travails of the campaign.
Instantly, the nation became obsessed with this issue; "Obama" and "puppy"
return 11.5 million hits on a Google web search, 12 times more than "Obama" and
"economic plan". But, as the Roman emperor Commodus' sister Lucilla (Connie
Nielsen) said in the year 2000 movie Gladiator, "The mob is fickle,
brother." Lately, the new US president has been feeling its sting.
Due to Malia's allergies, the Obamas are said to be seeking a pure-bred pup,
not an abandoned mutt from one of the country's animal shelters. This
immediately raised hackles from the nation's animal welfare and rights
advocates, who said that, what with over half the dogs in shelters eventually
being euthanized, the new first family should just let their oldest daughter
sneeze and sniffle through her residence at the White House to set a good
example.
On a bulletin board, a poster elaborated the argument: "Even with a child with
allergies, there are plenty of pure-breed dogs (including poodles and other
breeds that are non-allergenic) waiting in shelters. Hundreds of thousand
(maybe more???) perfectly adoptable cats and dogs get euthanized (killed) each
year because there is no where to place them."
But that was not the end of the contribution by this poster, self-identified as
"maidawg", to the public policy debate. As the first family's house was getting
a dog, the nation should use this historic moment to ensure that all houses,
or, in maidawg's case, all South Florida condominium owners, have the right to
have a dog as well.
The Obama family choice to get a dog also reflects
the current culture in which 63% of US households have at least one companion
animal. This younger overall culture is in conflict with the average resident
of the 55+ housing complexes where no pets are allowed. What I am trying to say
is that the whole country is moving toward acceptance of pets and our time will
come when pets are allowed everywhere… Citizens FOR Pets in Condos
www.petsincondos.org is a 501-c3 tax exempt private operating foundation
dedicated to increasing acceptance of companion animals in condos and other
types of association-run housing. We educate the public about the health
benefits of having animal companions and also advocate for responsible pet
ownership/guardianship. Our motto: "creating a win-win situation for both
people and pets" ... Citizens for Pets in Condos insists that pet
owners/guardians must be responsible and must do all they can to keep their
animals from being a true nuisance to others living in their communities!
As Obama prepares to take the oath of office as America's 44th president, 300
million Americans are filled with hope and anticipation, hoping that he can
restore the legendary American dream. That would be hard enough, but what
really makes the job tough is the fact that there is no single, unified
American dream actually still left - just 300 million individual American
dreams, apparently spanning the spectrum from beaujolais to beagles, all
looking for Washington for fulfillment.
Unlike most, I didn't age into cynicism; people said I was a cynic when I still
was in my teens. Still, even with my long years of scoff and sneer coloring my
view of everything from politics to pizza, it's hard not to be impressed, even
exhilarated, at the feelings of rebirth and regeneration now sweeping across
America. Everybody I see, from the blowsy, logorreic Manhattan intellectuals
blabbing on into the wee hours of the night on the Public Broadcasting System's Charlie
Rose Show to the guy who changes my motor oil, seems to be now hopeful
and optimistic about the future.
Part of this is the extraordinarily dignified and admirable manner that Obama
carried himself during the campaign and its aftermath, but a lot more of it is
just the complete and utter revulsion with which Bush is now viewed by the
country. Early on, Bush fell under the Mephistophelean influence of his
political advisor Karl Rove, who advised that the country's political structure
should be trifurcated into a Democratic Party base, which at best should be
ignored, at worst sent for internment at Guantanamo; a middle ground which
could be placated with bread and circuses such as real-estate speculation and
Fox TV's American Idol, and a conservative, fundamentalist base, whose
every quirk and whim was to be immediately satisfied with the full force of
government.
After eight years, Bush's record low approval ratings and two successive
Republican Party electoral drubbings prove that things haven't gone quite the
way Rove, whom Fox News still admiringly calls "The Architect" (well, maybe
it's still true, since it was his folly that drove almost 70 million people to
vote for Obama), had planned.
The uninvolved middle got fed up and threw their lot in with the Democratic
left; even much of the Republican base, what with its members being foreclosed
out of their McMansions and their children coming back from Iraq in flag-draped
coffins, eventually turned against Bush. Indeed, to an extent I can never
recall, Bush has united the country - from Maine to California, from the
northern border with Canada on the 49th parallel to the border with Mexico on
the Rio Grande river, America couldn't wait to see him go back to Texas.
Of course, the first issue that must be addressed is the pathetic state of the
US economy, digging a deeper and deeper hole, from severe recession towards
depression, with each successive worse-than-expected economic report.
For most of the time from his victories in the Super Tuesday primaries last
February 4 to election day, Obama carried between a 6% and 12% lead in the
opinion polls, eventually winning by 7.2%, or 9.5 million votes. Still, it was
the rapid and shocking decline in the economy following on the bankruptcy of
Lehman Brothers on September 15 (see
Silences say it all Asia Times Online, September 16, 2008) that
rendered the vicious Republican attacks of the autumn, on issues such as former
1960s' radical Bill Ayres, the incendiary Reverend Jeremiah Wright and every
other irrelevancy they could find, impotent. Previous Democratic nominees
Michael Dukakis in 1988, Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, who all came
out of their nominating conventions with substantial polling leads that soon
evaporated in the face of the gales of Republican smear, were not so fortunate.
Obama's immense current popularity is changing the political calculus for the
fiscal spending stimulus package that will be introduced to counter the
downturn.
With 41 votes in the Senate (once Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty
stops holding his breath until his face turns blue and allows Al Franken to be
seated) the opposition Republicans in the US Senate have, if their party stays
unified, enough votes to prevent passage of any legislation not to their
liking. That was the strategy that worked well in the first two years of Bill
Clinton's administration from 1993-94, when the Republicans were also still in
the minority before their electoral landslide in 1994.
Then, the Republicans stopped any and all legislation that Clinton and the
Democrats could possibly take credit for; maybe bills commemorating the victors
in Little League baseball could get through, not much else. The Republicans
reverted to much the same strategy after the Democrats re-took the Senate in
2006, but this time they were not rewarded with an electoral victory in the
next election, but with a drubbing, losing eight seats.
The country now wants action, not talk.
This presents the Republicans in the Senate with a huge dilemma (in the House
of Representatives, anything that speaker Nancy
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