Denial. McCain's refusal to confront the realities of the failing Bush economy has long roots and was again on display last Monday. McCain, who has frequently described the economic slowdown as "psychological," for at least the 18th time proclaimed the "fundamentals of our economy are strong." As the Dow plummeted over 500 points, McCain reacted to the white-hot crisis on Wall Street by comically announcing his support for a 9/11-style commission to study the causes of and make recommendations to address the meltdown. Willing to kick the can down the road with his since forgotten 9/11 panel idea, McCain also took a head-in-the-sand position in opposing the government rescue of teetering insurance giant AIG:

"We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else."

Anger. Sadly, McCain's denial of the obvious produced an immediate backlash from the press and the public alike. Literally within hours last Monday, McCain reversed course on the underlying strength of the American economy and declared the fundamentals of the economy to be "at great risk."

Then John McCain did what he does best - he got mad. (Unsurprisingly, McCain also launched a furious tirade in response to accusations 20 years ago about his Keating Five role during the last U.S. financial catastrophe.) Redefining "economic fundamentals" to refer the U.S. work force, McCain blasted his "opponents" for slandering American workers. By mid-week, McCain found a convenient - if unconstitutional - target for his rage, SEC chairman Chris Cox.

Bargaining. His response mocked as incoherent at best, McCain then proceeded to the third textbook phase of grief over the economy: bargaining. As the Kubler-Ross model describes the bargaining stage, "Now the grieving person may make bargains with God, asking, 'If I do this, will you take away the loss?'"

So fast and furious, McCain started to bargain. Acknowledging that as President he couldn't fire the SEC's Cox, McCain instead called for his resignation. (This morning, McCain cynically offered up New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo as a replacement.) Within 24 hours, he changed his tune on AIG, now supporting the bail-out package he opposed just the day before:

"The government was forced to commit $85 billion...The focus of any such action should be to protect the millions of Americans who hold insurance policies, retirement plans and other accounts with AIG."

And to be sure, McCain bargained economic surrogate and serial embarrassment Carly Fiorina right out of his campaign. When the details of her massive $42 million severance package from HP became public, the woman who deemed McCain incapable of running a company found herself on the sidelines.

Depression. By last Thursday, a pall of gloom hung over McCain as he entered the fourth stage of grieving, depression. In a move that could only draw attention to his own checkered past in the savings and loan scandal of the 1980's, McCain meekly proposed the creation of a Mortgage and Financial Institutions (MFI) trust to help the failing firms of Wall Street fend off insolvency. Ironically, McCain had repeatedly opposed the Resolution Trust Corporation in the past, an institution that ultimately poured $400 billion into bailing out the S&L's, including the $3 billion lost by McCain sugar daddy Charles Keating's Lincoln Financial.

That same day, McCain tried to fight back, but his heart wasn't in it. In a foreboding ad fraught with racial overtones, McCain tried to link Obama with former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines. While the Washington Post quickly debunked the spot by noting that Raines is not an adviser to the Obama campaign, Time suggested McCain was playing the race card.

Acceptance. By today, it was clear that John McCain had reached the fifth and final stage of grieving over the economic issue. Just one week after proclaiming the "fundamentals of our economy are strong," McCain said on the Today Show this morning:

"We are in the most serious crisis since World War II."

That clarity is letting McCain do what McCain does best - attack. In a cynical attempt at misdirection the Politico's Jonathan Martin deemed "tossing more chum overboard," the McCain campaign aired a new ad once again trying to connect Barack Obama to Chicago dealmaker Tony Rezko. And on Sunday, McCain ignored his own week of dizzying incoherence on the economy and thundered at Obama:

"At a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, Senator Obama has simply not provided it."

Apparently, John McCain's new-found acceptance of the dismal state of the economy lets him rage against the Obama machine without embarrassment. After all, McCain's transition manager William Timmons was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This morning, the New York Times revealed that McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis pocketed $2 million in lobbying fees from the failed home mortgage giants. And on Sunday, McCain refused to rule out that his adviser and UBS vice chairman Phil Gramm, of "nation of whiners" fame and himself a possible bailout recipient, as Treasury Secretary in a McCain-Palin administration.

To be sure, watching John McCain wrestle with his demons - and ignorance - over the troubled economy has been painful to watch. As crypto-conservative columnist George Will put it:

"John McCain showed his personality this week and made some of us fearful."

But with his 11 houses and 13 cars, John McCain can afford to work through his cognitive breakdown over the state of the broken economy. Unfortunately, the rest of us can't. While Americans are mourning the loss of their homes and savings, John McCain is apparently grieving over his potential loss of the White House.

The implosion of Wall Street this week comes as a triple-dose of bad news for John McCain. No doubt, his daily-changing response to the crisis confirmed McCain's self-proclaimed ignorance of economics. Perhaps even more damaging, America's financial nightmare conjured images of the savings and loan scandal 20 years ago, one in which McCain's close ties to political sugar daddy Charles Keating almost ended his career. And to be sure, flashing back to McCain's 1989 temper tantrum in response to his Keating Five charges can only remind American voters that John McCain is dangerously unfit for the nation's highest office.

As I detailed previously, McCain's proposal on Thursday to essentially resurrect the Resolution Trust Corporation harkens back to S&L disaster in which he was a central figure. The RTC was an entity signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, which in the 1980's and 1990's ultimately poured $400 billion into hundreds of faltering savings and loan institutions. About $3 billion of that came from the collapse of Charles Keating's Lincoln Financial, the man for whom McCain interceded with federal thrift regulators.

While McCain was ultimately admonished by a Senate ethics panel only for "poor judgment," his behavior in response to the white hot press spotlight raises troubling questions about his fitness to lead. As the Arizona Republic recalled in March 2007:

On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.

The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.

McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.

When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself.

"You're a liar," McCain said when a Republic reporter asked him about the business relationship between his wife and Keating.

"That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot," McCain said later in the same conversation. "You do understand English, don't you?"

He also belittled reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.

"It's up to you to find that out, kids."

Ultimately, the paper ran the story. After it broke, McCain held a news conference with his rage in check and calmly answered questions for 90 minutes. (In a preview of the 2008 campaign, McCain's defense was that his wife's finances - and extreme wealth - were separate from his own.)

But McCain's response also revealed another disturbing pattern that continues to this day. After launching a furious tirade against the media, McCain sought to forgiveness after the fact. As the Boston Globe described the episode:

When reporters questioned the investment, John McCain wrote in his autobiography, he "shouted at them, cursed them, and eventually slammed the phone down on them. It was ridiculously immature behavior."

In that same 2002 book, McCain pondered, "I don't know how (The Republic journalists) would have reported the story had I been more civil and understanding or just more of a professional during the interview."

Two weeks ago, Joe Klein of Time summed up McCain then and now with his indictment of the Republican nominee's "sleazy ads," predicting:

"I just can't wait for the moment when John McCain--contrite and suddenly honorable again in victory or defeat--talks about how things got a little out of control in the passion of the moment. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig."

This week's financial meltdown should serve to focus Americans' minds on John McCain's dark role in precipitating the last one 20 years ago. And his hysterical reaction to the charges he faced then should give voters of all stripes pause. For his corruption and out-of-control temper, John McCain can't simply kiss and make up with the American press - or people.

As Joe Klein put it, "apology not accepted."

After his proposal Tuesday to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the meltdown on Wall Street was greeted with a mixture of yawns and giggles, McCain on Thursday essentially proposed the resurrection of the Resolution Trust Corporation, the entity signed into law by President George H.W. Bush that in the 1980's and 1990's ultimately poured $400 billion into hundreds of faltering savings and loan institutions:

First, to deal with the immediate crisis, I will lead in the creation of the Mortgage and Financial Institutions trust -- the MFI. The underlying principle of the MFI or any approach considered by Congress should be to keep people in their homes and safe guard the life savings of all Americans by protecting our financial system and capital markets. This trust will work with the private sector and regulators to identify institutions that are weak and fix them before they become insolvent.

Sadly, John McCain has a 20 year record of opposing the very kind of entity he now proposes to create. On March 25 of this year, his chief economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin (the same man who credited McCain with the invention of the Blackberry device) proclaimed McCain's opposition to a new Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) to address the home mortgage crisis:

"The senator is not in favor of an RTC-like vehicle that would wholesale purchase loans."

And as the Guardian noted yesterday, at the height of the savings and loan scandal two decades ago, John McCain tried to halt action by the creation of the RTC:

McCain joined Phil Gramm and other Republican senators in rebelling against the 1989 bill that created the RTC. Today he praised the very idea he voted to slow down, saying the RTC was "designed to clean up the system and worked."

Of course, McCain's free market orthodoxy wasn't the only factor at work in opposing the original RTC. Back then, John McCain's political benefactor was Charles Keating. And McCain's role in assisting Keating's Lincoln Financial, whose ultimate collapse cost American taxpayers $3 billion, nearly ended his political career.

Earlier this year, the Boston Globe summarized McCain's close relationship with Keating and his decision to intervene with federal regulators on his behalf:

McCain met Keating in 1982, during McCain's successful run for Congress, and soon began accepting offers from Keating to fly McCain's family on a corporate plane to Keating's house in the Bahamas. McCain did not pay for most of the trips until years later, when the matter became public.

Keating, meanwhile, complained regularly to McCain that a proposed regulation would hurt his business. Known as the "direct investment" rule, it limited the amount that savings-and-loan institutions could invest from their assets. In 1985, after having "heard frequently from Charlie on the matter," McCain decided that Keating's complaints "were sound enough to warrant our assistance." He cosponsored a resolution sought by Keating, but it failed to postpone the regulation, McCain wrote in his autobiography.

By then, Keating was one of McCain's most important benefactors; McCain received $112,000 in campaign donations from Keating and his Lincoln associates, mostly between 1982 and 1986.

It was in April 1987 that McCain fatefully joined four other senators in meeting with Edwin Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Washington. After that meeting, Gray told his associate William K. Black that he was "very upset" that the senators were trying to pressure him.

Ultimately, a Senate ethics panel agreed with that assessment. California Democrat Alan Cranston was censured for "an impermissible pattern of conduct," while Senators DeConcini (D-AZ) and Riegle (D-MI) were criticized for actions which "gave the appearance of being improper." As for McCain, he and John Glenn (D-OH) were admonished for exercising "poor judgment."

McCain, who had told the Ethics Committee that his role in support of Keating was "to help constituents in a proper fashion," reacted to the panel's findings in 1991, "I am, of course, relieved that I have been exonerated."

And so it was that John McCain survived the Keating Five and S&L scandals with his career, if not his reputation, intact. As the New York Times recounted this past February:

When Lincoln went bankrupt in 1989 - one of the biggest collapses of the savings and loan crisis, costing taxpayers $3.4 billion - the Keating Five became infamous. The scandal sent Mr. Keating to prison and ended the careers of three senators, who were rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991 for intervening. Mr. McCain, who had been a less aggressive advocate for Mr. Keating than the others, was reprimanded only for "poor judgment" and was re-elected the next year.

Some people involved think Mr. McCain got off too lightly. William Black, one of the banking regulators the senator met with, argued that Mrs. McCain's investment with Mr. Keating created an obvious conflict of interest for her husband. (Mr. McCain had said a prenuptial agreement divided the couple's assets.) He should not be able to "put this behind him," Mr. Black said. "It sullied his integrity."

For his part, John McCain has acknowledged the blight on his record, if not his sense of his own honor. As Senator McCain put it in December 1999, the taint of his Keating Five role is permanent:

"The fact is, it was the wrong thing to do, and it will be on my tombstone and deservedly so."

But that hasn't prevented presidential candidate McCain from pretending this week that his part in the S&L tragedy never happened. That's quite a farce indeed. But Karl Marx notwithstanding, the election of John McCain to the White House in the face of this second, trillion-dollar American financial crisis would be no joke, but an epic tragedy.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to debate the renewal of FISA revisions made in August, President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress are endorsing a unique double-standard when it comes to immunity for telecommunications firms. Within the United States, they argue, service providers such as AT&T and Verizon must cooperate with U.S. government demands for access to Americans' electronic communications and should be immune from citizens' lawsuits. But in China and elsewhere, as Republican reaction to this week's Yahoo saga suggests, not so much.

The Bush administration bill, supported by Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and virtually all Republicans in Congress, allows the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence to issue year-long surveillance orders without prior court review where one party is outside the U.S. There are no protections for Americans who may have no connection to a foreign "target"; their electronic communications will be swept up in the same dragnet. Importantly, so-called electronic communications providers (or ECP's) are compelled to cooperate with government directives requiring surveillance or information access or risk of substantial fines and contempt of court charges. (Grounds for appeal via the FISA court and the Supreme Court are limited.)

In return, the companies gain immunity from civil lawsuits for their role in enabling NSA domestic surveillance of their customers' data and communications dating back to September 11, 2001. Section 202 of Title II gives the Attorney General unilateral power to decide that "a covered civil action shall not lie or be maintained in a Federal or State court, and shall be promptly dismissed" on his certification alone.

But as the controversy surrounding Yahoo this week shows, Republican leaders strike a mirror image pose when it comes to protecting Chinese civil liberties. Put another way, what telecommunications firms must do (and should be protected in doing) to assist the U.S. government in monitoring their customers, they must never do in China and elsewhere.

First, a little background. On Tuesday, Yahoo settled lawsuits brought by two Chinese journalists who had been jailed as a result of the company's provision of their user information to the Beijing government. Yahoo's surrender came just days after founder Jeff Yang and general counsel Michael Callahan were rightly savaged by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Chairman Tom Lantos (D-CA) condemned Yang and Callahan as "moral pygmies" for cooperating with a Chinese government "subpoena-like document" to supply information about journalists accused of the "illegal provision of state secrets." Committee member Chris Smith (R-NJ) went further in a blistering critique of Yahoo, firms that cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II:

"There certainly is a parallel here. People are being tortured and mistreated today because of that complicity."

And so with no sense of irony, Smith reiterated his call for passage of his proposed Global Online Freedom Act. As Wired reported yesterday, Smith's bill in essence stands the telecom immunity and compulsory ECP cooperation mandates of the Protect America Act on their head:

In a statement issued Tuesday, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey said that the settlement doesn't obviate the need for his proposed bill, which would among other things make it illegal for US tech companies to divulge identifying user information to repressive regimes, and allow affected parties to bring civil suits against such companies in the United States.

"As a nation, we have a responsibility to continue to push for the release of these human rights leaders and pass the Global Online Freedom Act to prevent this egregious human rights abuse from happening to others," said Smith in a statement. "Much like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, my legislation will make certain that US companies are not compelled to comply with local Secret Police or any other unlawful policies when operating in foreign markets."

For China and other repressive nations, Smith's bill inverts his support of the draconian infringements to American civil liberties he voted for in August. Despite the almost certain unconstitutionality of President Bush's regime of illegal NSA domestic surveillance prior to August 2007, Smith and his Republican allies would both compel American firm to cooperate with the Bush's administration's "unlawful policies" and protect them from subsequent lawsuits. (Senator Russ Feingold is offering an amendment to strike retroactive immunity for precisely this reason.) But in China, Yahoo, Google and other service providers would face precisely the reverse.

No doubt, legislation is needed to prevent firms like Yahoo from succumbing to censorship and privacy violations that jeopardize the freedom - and lives - of their users in countries like China. No doubt, the intent of Rep. Smith's bill is to target only "repressive" regimes (including those in Belarus, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, North Korea, the People's Republic of China, Tunisia, and Vietnam), and not the democratic United States.

Sadly, in George W. Bush's America, it is getting harder and harder to tell the difference.

In Washington Tuesday, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee savaged Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan for the company's involvement in the 2005 jailing of a Chinese dissident. But if their bipartisan criticism of Yahoo's behavior - cooperating with a Chinese government "subpoena-like document" to supply information about journalist accused of the "illegal provision of state secrets" - sounds disingenuous, it should. After all, those are trademark tactics of the Bush administration and its Republican amen corner in the aftermath of 9/11.

That Yahoo's accommodation with the information requests and censorship demands of the Chinese government is reprehensible, like that of its competitor Google, is beyond doubt. In April 2004, Yahoo China officials in Hong Kong officials were contacted by the Chinese government seeking the usage records that ultimately helped it identify journalist Shi Tao. Yahoo, receiving a "subpoena-like document" that declared "your office is in possession of items relating to a case of suspected illegal provision of state secrets to foreign entities," cooperated with Chinese investigators. As a result, Shi's home was raided in November and his computer confiscated. In March 2005, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

House Committee members of both parties delivered a firestorm of condemnation upon Yang and Callahan. "While technologically and financially you are giants," Chairman Tom Lantos (D-CA) said, "morally you are pygmies." Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) played the Hitler card, comparing Yahoo's acquiescence with the Chinese government to firms that cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II:

"There certainly is a parallel here. People are being tortured and mistreated today because of that complicity."

Sadly for Americans, the analog for Yahoo's China syndrome may not be Adolf Hitler's Germany, but George W. Bush's United States.

The disturbing parallels begin with those Chinese "subpoena-like documents," which seem eerily similar to National Security Letters (NSLs) under the Patriot Act. In the wake of 9/11, the FBI now issues 30,000 NSLs a year, documents issued without warrants which demand telephone, electronic, financials of ordinary Americans merely suspected of ties to foreign spy organizations or terrorist groups. NSL recipients receive a gag order barring them from even disclosing their receipt of the letter. And as Connecticut librarian George Christian learned in November 2005, the language of the NSL even resembles Yahoo's experience in China, demanding "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who accessed a specific library computer.

All of which adds more irony to the exchanges between the Committee and the Yahoo CEO and general counsel. For example, as the AP reported:

"I cannot ask our local employees to resist lawful demands and put their own freedom at risk, even if, in my personal view, the local laws are overbroad," Callahan said.

Lantos interrupted him.

"Why do you insist on repeating the phrase 'lawful orders'? These were demands by a police state," Lantos said.

"It's my understanding that under Chinese law these are lawful," Callahan responded after some hesitation.

Whether or not National Security Letters remain lawful in the United States is another question. In September, a federal judge ruled the FBI's use of NSLs an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment. And in the wake of widespread abuses reported to Congress, even faithful Bush supporters like Dan Lungren (R-CA) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) warned the FBI that "can't get away with this and expect to maintain public support for the tools that they need to combat terrorism."

Of course, the similarities between Communist China and George Bush's America don't end there. Like the Chinese government in the Shi case, the Bush administration and its amen corner believe journalists should prosecuted for revealing classified information highlighting its wrongdoing and criminal behavior.

Calls for the prosecution of both leakers and reporters followed the Washington Post CIA "black sites" and New York Times NSA domestic surveillance stories. (Of course, the outing of Valerie Plame was another issue altogether for Republicans.) For example, following the Times' revelations in December 2005 about President Bush's illegal NSA domestic spying scheme, President Bush raged about what he deemed "a shameful act" that is "helping the enemy". Claiming he didn't order an investigation, Bush added "the Justice Department, I presume, will proceed forward with a full investigation" At a subsequent press conference that same day, Alberto Gonzales suggested the retribution that was to come:

"As to whether or not there will be a leak investigation, as the President indicated, this is really hurting national security, this has really hurt our country, and we are concerned that a very valuable tool has been compromised. As to whether or not there will be a leak investigation, we'll just have to wait and see."

As it turned out, of course, there was a leak investigation. In August 2005, the FBI raided the home of Thomas M. Tamm, a veteran prosecutor and former official of the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) within Gonzales' Justice Department. That was not sufficient for the President's echo chamber at publications like Commentary magazine, which renewed its call for the prosecution of the New York Times and its journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau for breaking the NSA story.

The parade of ironies at yesterday's Yahoo hearing hardly end there. Yahoo lawyer Callahan rightly came under withering assault for his misleading 2006 testimony that Yahoo had no idea about the nature of the Chinese government's investigation of Shi. Despite former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' repeated lies to Congress regarding the U.S. attorneys purge and his role in the NSA program, Republican Smith had the gall to ask:

"How could a dozen lawyers prepare another lawyer to testify before Congress without anyone thinking to look at the document that had caused the hearing to be called? This is astonishing."

And given all of the Bush administration's incompetence, ethical lapses and outright criminality from Katrina, the Iraq occupation and NSA spying to the prosectors purge, Dana Rohrbacher was furious that no Yahoo employees were disciplined or fired as a result of the handling of the Shi case. "You think," he asked sarcastically, "that sends the right message to your employees?"

That's a question the American people have been asking George W. Bush for almost seven years. And as Congress debates providing immunity to telecommunications and Internet firms for their cooperation with the U.S. government in its surveillance of American citizens, the questions shouldn't end there.

On the campaign trail in Michigan on Saturday, GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney announced his support for more seasonal visas for foreign workers laboring in tourism, agriculture and other sectors of the economy. As well he should. After all, Romney routinely hired illegal aliens to do the landscaping for his tony Boston area home.

Never one for irony, Romney offered his prescription for addressing peak labor market shortages and the undocumented workers they attract. During a stop in northern Michigan, Romney told the assembled he had the solution for the summer time tourism crush:

"The answer to that is simple, which is issue more visas. If our employment sector needs additional immigrant laborers, then issue the visas necessary to provide that work force...I'm not going to leave America's employers without the capacity to meet the needs of our consuming public."

But always desperate to pressure Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani over the former New York mayor's supposed soft line on immigration, Mitt signaled his own willingness to crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers:

"That'll stop the flow of people into this country for work because they won't be able to get work."

Not, that is, unless they look for work with the Romney family in Massachusetts.

As the Boston Globe reported last December, Romney hired a landscaping firm that routinely utilized illegal alien workers to tend to his 2-1/2 acre family residence just outside of Boston. The firm also tended to the grounds of his one of his five sons, Taggart. The Globe team interviewed four undocumented workers in Guatemala who confirmed that Romney never asked for them or their employer to produce immigration papers.

Confronted by Globe reporters, Romney offered a Romneyesque response:

Asked by a reporter yesterday about his use of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, Romney, who was hosting the Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, said, "Aw, geez," and walked away.

Whether the issue is immigration, Iran, abortion or even his state of residence, Romney's gymanastic flip-flops and casual hypocrisy seem effortless. No help needed there.

As the Washington Post reported this week, Internet giant Google has deployed a substantial lobbying team in the nation's capital. The company, whose corporate mantra is "Don't Be Evil," hopes to avoid Microsoft's anti-trust woes of the 1990's by getting its hands dirty in the gritty world of Washington politics. Of course, when it comes to issues of privacy and censorship, Google's hands weren't exactly spotless.

Google's lobbying efforts are already having an impact. Its bipartisan team of heavy hitters from the Hill and the White House helped fuel a Justice Department anti-trust action against Microsoft over the integration of desktop search functionality in its Windows Vista operating system. Last week, Microsoft relented in a compromise with federal and state officials monitoring the company's five-year old anti-trust consent decree.

Perhaps more strategic, Google is lobbying the U.S. government to view censorship of Internet searches and content as a restriction on international trade. Regimes throughout Asia and the Middle East are increasingly limiting web access and content, a growing problem not limited to China, where Google has over 20% market share. As Andrew McLaughlin, Google's director of public policy and government affairs put it, "It's fair to say that censorship is the No. 1 barrier to trade that we face."

And Google's high political profile isn't limited to cajoling the U.S. trade representative. As Perrspectives detailed back in May, Google is hosting 2008 presidential contenders in a series of forums at its Mountain View, California campus. With its visibility, friendly brand, Silicon Valley clout and large potential donor base, Google has become a "must-stop for candidates." Given the role that Google and its web properties like YouTube play in today's campaigns, it's no wonder that John McCain, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have already made the pilgrimage to Google HQ.

But despite its quirky, friendly brand and fervently loyal user base, Google is far from the chaste, K Street ingenue. Google, after all, agreed to onerous censorship requirements from the Communist government in Beijing in order to establish its presence in China. In 2006, a disingenuous CEO Eric Schmidt defended his company's accommodation with Chinese censorship, "I think it's arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning operations and tell that country how to run itself." That, Google's new lobbying effort suggests, is a job for the U.S. government.

Google has also wrestled with de facto censorship of users and advertisers alike. For example, in April YouTube removed an embarrassing video of John McCain performing his Beach Boys tribute "Bomb Iran." In addition, Google has repeatedly - and arbitrarily - banned advertisers whose web site content it deemed to "advocate against an individual, group or organization." (Perrspectives' own 2004 experience with Google's de facto censorship is detailed in "Google's Gag Order.") Even with its newer, more flexible editorial standard only limiting advertisers whose content advocates "against a protected group," Google's advertising programs remain ripe for abuse.

Free speech advocates aren't the only ones with Google gripes. Privacy advocates are concerned, too. A June 2007 report by U.K. based Privacy International ranked Google at the bottom of 20 Internet service companies in terms of user privacy protections. The report slammed Google, with its dominant market share and extensive, persistent usage tracking database, as displaying "entrenched hostility to privacy." (It should be noted that the Privacy International study's conclusions are hotly contested within the tech community and blogosphere.)

These flirtations with evil-doing, of course, do not make Google fundamentally evil. Google services, after all, indispensable, everyday companions for virtually any web user. The company has also been an economic development engine, bringing hosting facilities and data centers to cities and town far from Google's Bay Area campus. Google has also been supportive with university gifts, individual grants and scholarships, especially for open source development.

But fun and friendly Google is no innocent, either. And as its lobbying machine ramps up its work in DC, this is no case of "Mr. Schmidt Goes to Washington."

In Washington this week, the Senate will take up the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Passed by the House 241-185 in March, EFCA would make it much easier for unions to organize. Predictably, red state Republican Senators backed by an alliance of business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will likely prevent the measure from coming to a vote. Which is too bad. After all, from wages and benefits to job opportunities and collective bargaining rights, it is red state workers who need EFCA most.

First a little background. The decline of the American manufacturing sector combined with increased intimidation from employers have shriveled the unionized workforce to 9% (down from its 1950's high of 30%). The Employee Free Choice Act, as the Center for American Progress details, was designed to help American workers organize to improve stagnant wages and protect diminishing health and pension benefits in an ever more hostile bargaining environment:

"Under current law, an employer can insist on a secret-ballot election," even after a majority of employees express their desire to organize. The proposed law "would give employees at a workplace the right to unionize as soon as a majority signed cards saying they wanted to do so"...Employees "often feel intimidated by their employers during unionization drives and so are fearful of losing their jobs." Employers illegally fire employees for union activity in "more than one-quarter of all organizing efforts." Approximately half of employers illegally threaten to close or relocate the business if workers elect to form a union.

And as Perrspectives has previously detailed, working conditions and wages are worst in precisely those red states that elected George W. Bush.

For example, a December 2005 report by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts showed that Americans' working conditions in general closely follow the 2004 electoral map. The report's Work Environment Index (WEI) rated the quality of Americans' working lives by a weighting of three factors: job opportunities, job quality, and job fairness. The top five states were Delaware, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Vermont and Iowa, the bottom five were South Carolina, Utah, Arkansas Texas and Louisiana.

There are no surprises among the worst performing states in the Work Environment Index. Virtually all below the Mason-Dixon line, the WEI laggards feature dismal pay and an outwardly hostile environment towards union organizing, workers' rights and collective bargaining. Red America is the home of the so-called Right-to-Work (RTW) states. These "right to work" states prohibit workers from being required to join a trade union as a condition of employment. A leader in the Right-to-Work movement, Bush's home state of Texas was ranked 50th, with the percentage of workers with health and pension benefits running a full 10% below the top WEI performers:

But working conditions aren't the only area where denizens of the Republican heartland suffer relative to their blue state brethren. As Perrspectives detailed in January, minimum wage levels also vary significantly from state to state. Unsurprisingly, many of the "bluest" states lead the way in exceeding both the previous ($5.15 an hour) and recently passed ($7.25) federal requirements, with Washington, Oregon, California, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut mandating wages as high as $7.93. Only one of the 21 states (New Hampshire) mired at $5.15 an hour did not vote for George W. Bush in 2004.

But in the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act, the woes of red state workers will have no impact on their elected representatives. President Bush, of course has vowed to veto the bill. The Senate Republican Conference touts an op-ed piece by Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, which blasts EFCA while lauding his state's dismal economic performance. Shelby comically proclaims "Alabama workers have partnered with business and together they have created a vibrant economy."

And to think his fellow Republican Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called the bill "Orwellian."

If anyone had any lingering doubts about the unique role of Google as a social, cultural and political force in the United States, a Friday appearance by John McCain at its company headquarters should put them to rest. The special forum hosted by CEO Eric Schmidt let GOP White House hopeful McCain bring his views directly to Google employees - and the world. It's just too bad Google doesn't always treat its advertisers the same way.

McCain's visit to Google follows a February appearance by Hillary Clinton and is the second in its series of candidate forums. By all accounts CEO Schmidt, a prominent Democratic contributor, was even-handed and treated McCain and his record of service to America with great respect. On topics such as Iraq and the Pentagon's "Don't Ask. Don't Tell," however, McCain's reception wasn't as warm. All in all, it was another unique perk for the workers of perhaps the world's most exclusive company.

Sadly, Google advertisers and readers don't necessarily enjoy the same perks. That's because Google sometimes bans advertisers whose web site content expresses views akin to a political candidate. Back in 2004, I learned this the hard way.

But first a little background. The Google Adwords program allows web site operators to cost effectively promote their sites on Google search results pages. But Google can bar advertisers, even after their ads have started running, if the company deems their sites or ads violate its content policy. While its editorial guidelines rightly ban sites offering child pornography or advocating violence, Google's standards get much murkier when it comes to supposed "Anti" speech:

Advertisements and associated websites may not promote violence or advocate against a protected group. A protected group is distinguished by their race or ethnic origin, color, national origin, religion, disability, sex, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity. Ad text advocating against any organization or person (public, private, or protected) is not permitted. Stating disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate for public office, a political party or public administration is generally permissible.

This standard applies to everyone who wants to advertise on Google, whether we agree with their viewpoint or not.

While a laudable effort on its face, the Google guidelines can produce unpredictable and unpleasant results for advertisers. In 2004, Perrspectives was dropped by Google for including "unacceptable content" on the site that includes "language that advocates against an individual, group or organization." (The offending phrase cited by Google? The Bush White House was described as "secretive, paranoid and vengeance-filled.") After a back and forth appeals process lasting six weeks, Google relented and reversed its decision. (For a detailed history, see "Google's Gag Order" and "A Google Freedom of Information Act," as well as coverage in The Nation.)

Google, of course, is completely within its rights to accept or reject any advertiser on any grounds. And to its credit, the company has made important revisions to its advertising guidelines since 2004, especially regarding political campaigns and candidates.

But the ambiguities remain. For example, Senator McCain on April 16th authored a letter with a strong defense of the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy restricting gay members of the military. As ThinkProgress noted, McCain used tough language to attack gay servicemembers, over 10,000 of whom have been discharged since 1994:

"I believe polarization of the personnel and breakdown of unit effectiveness is too high a price to pay for well intentioned but misguided efforts to elevate the interests of a minority of homosexual servicemembers above those of their units.

Most importantly, the national security of the United States, not to mention the lives of our men and women in uniform, are put at grave risk by policies detrimental to the good order and and discipline which so distinguish America's Armed Services...I remain opposed to the open expression of homosexuality in the military."

According to Google's own standards, McCain is "advocating against" gay Americans, a "protected group." In theory, his campaign shouldn't be able to advertise (it is). Similarly, Tommy Thompson, who praised money-making as "part of the Jewish tradition" and during Thursday's GOP debate supported a firm's right to fire gay employees, should theoretically be barred. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Of course, none of them - left, right or center - should be banned as Google advertisers. Google should encourage access to the broadest possible range of opinion speech for its readers and advertisers alike. Ideally, the solution would be for Google to move away from its "advocates against" and "protected groups" guidelines and instead adopt a simpler standard. "No violence and no prurient interests" should be sufficient to ban Nazis and terrorists, pornographers and pedophiles.

After all, with a stock price of $470, Google of all companies should believe in the market place of ideas. Especially for one whose corporate slogan is "do no evil."

With Sunday's announcement of its headquarters relocation to Dubai, Halliburton completed its transformation from mere war-profiteer to corporate traitor. The motivations for the move are simple: death and taxes. Shifting its corporate headquarters not only allows Halliburton to shaft American taxpayers. It enables Dick Cheney's old firm to comfortably expand its large and growing business with Iran and other declared terrorist enemies of the United States.

The company, which raked in $2.3 billion in profits on revenue of $22.6 billion in 2006, offered up the standard boilerplate in explaining its exodus to Dubai:

"The opening of a headquarters in Dubai is the next step in a strategic plan announced in 2006 to focus on expanding its customer relations with national oil companies while concentrating more of the company's investments and resources in growing its business in the Eastern Hemisphere."

Halliburton CEO David Lesar portrayed the historic abandonment of the company's Houston HQ and its Delaware incorporation as business as usual. "I will continue," Lesar noted, "to spend quite a bit of time in an airplane as I remain attentive to our customers." Sadly for the United States, those customers will increasingly be found in places like Tehran, Damascus and Khartoum.

In November 2004, Forbes ("Trading with the Enemy") provided a glimpse into the dark world of dirty deals and re-exports in Dubai and the UAE by unaccountable foreign subsidiaries of American firms such as Halliburton:

No matter how hard the U.S. tries to keep dual-use commodities like gas monitors, software and nuclear triggers out of transshipment hubs like Dubai, stuff gets through. The lure is quick profits. Traders easily pocket 40% markups just by flipping goods, illicit and otherwise.

The open secret is that Dubai buys far more than it keeps. More than a quarter of its $23 billion in annual nonoil imports are reexported, and Iran gets the biggest share. Interviews with private businesspeople and U.S. officials, along with court documents, reveal a simple scheme. Companies located around the world sell goods--from cigarettes to medical devices and PCs--to buyers in the U.A.E. Dubai traders repackage the items and send them along by air or ship to agents in, say, Tehran, Pyongyang, Damascus or Islamabad.

And as I documented just two week ago, Halliburton has been very successful indeed in using its foreign subsidiaries to skirt U.S. laws banning trade and investment with Iran.

In 2004, the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes detailed the Iranian business dealings of Cheney's former company, Halliburton. Despite the prohibitions signed into law by President Clinton with his 1995 executive order and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, Halliburton continued to reap the profits of business with Iran through its non-U.S. subsidiaries. While U.S. law bans virtually all commerce with the rogue nations, Halliburton was able to jump through its major loophole: the rules do not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans. As CBS documented:

That subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands -- a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.

Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO from 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian government.

Halliburton has earned over $20 billion in contracts for the Iraq war. But even as the company is being investigated over $2.7 billion in waste and fraudulent charges to American taxpayers, Cheney's old firm looks to expand its business with another member of President Bush's "axis of evil," Iran. It's no wonder that Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy fumed that, "This is an insult to the U.S. soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years."

For Dick Cheney and his colleagues at Halliburton, it's just good business. In 2002, Vice President Cheney described Iran as "the world's leading exporter of terror." But as Halliburton CEO, Cheney was a fervent foe of President Clinton's sanctions against the regime in Tehran. In 1998, he complained that his company was being "cut out of the action." And back in 1996, Cheney railed against the Clinton prohibitions on Iranian trade and financial activity for American firms:

"We seem to be sanction-happy as a government. The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments."

Vice President Cheney will be untroubled Pat Leahy's complaints about the Benedict Arnolds at Halliburton. After all, in 2004 Cheney told Leahy to "go f**k yourself" on the Senate floor.

Now, Halliburton is sending Cheney's message to all of the American people.

With each passing week, Americans are provided more insight into the deeply flawed character and mounting sins of their President. The latest comes in the form of a study by the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University showing that more MBA students cheat than those pursuing other professions. In what should come a surprise to few, George W. Bush, America's putative first MBA president, is the poster boy for the country's most dishonest profession.

Ironically, the Duke University report appeared just days after Bob Woodward depicted an out-of-touch, duplicitous Commander-in-Chief and former Bush faith-based crusader David Kuo portrayed a Pastor-in-Chief manipulating his flock for partisan political advantage. The study of 5,300 students at 54 institutions found that 56% of MBA students acknowledged cheating, more than those in fields such as education (48%), social sciences (39%) or even law (45%). Apparently, it is our future business leaders, and not the GOP bogeymen the trial lawyers, that Americans should trust least.

These findings should help finally dispel the conservative hagiography of George W. Bush as "America's First MBA President." As US News and the New Republic previously detailed, by any objective measure Bush's management of the federal budget and the war in Iraq should have long since led to the firing of America's CEO. In comparison to his failing grades as President, the C's Bush manufactured at Harvard Business School look like a stunning academic achievement.

But more telling than President Bush's failure as our business leader is his personification of the MBA cheating culture itself. From working connections and claiming credit for the work of others to fudging the numbers and outright lying, George W. Bush is the picture of the MBA gone bad.

Consider the Bush family connections and all of the luck and good fortune that goes with it. When Dubya ran afoul of the SEC for his insider trading while at Harken Energy, it was Bush family consigiliere James Baker and his friends at the law firm of Baker Botts who kept him out of legal hot water. And during the 2000 Florida recount, those same connections, and not his competence, made George W. Bush the 43rd president of the United States.

George W. Bush has also excelled at another hallmark of the MBA cheat, claiming credit for the work of others. While Governor of Texas, Bush opposed a Patients' Bill of Rights. Facing a veto-proof majority in the legislature, Bush let the bill become law without his signature. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush took credit for the very measure he opposed. That pattern would continue to define his presidency, as Bush claimed ownership of the success of measures he initially opposed, including both the 9/11 and Iraq WMD Commissions and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.

The B-School corollary to appropriating the glory of others' successes is to deflect blame for one's own failures. In April 2004, President Bush famously stated he could not think of a single mistake he had made during his tenure. For Bush and his amen corner in the conservative movement, the war in Iraq stemmed from "bad intelligence." The disastrous federal response to Hurricane Katrina was the MBA's version of "the dog ate my homework" or perhaps an act of God. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees," America's MBA President wrongly declared.

Another arrow in the quiver of MBA dishonesty is fudging the numbers. Here, too, President Bush is a practitioner without equal. For example, his tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which delivered over 40% of their benefits to the richest 1% of Americans, were advertised as providing Americans a tax cut of $1000 "on average." In the last few weeks, the White House proclaimed its success in meeting its 2004 promise to halve the federal budget deficit. That claim was based, of course, on artificially inflated deficit estimates made prior to the '04 presidential election. And faced with stagnant wages, declining median incomes, and out-of-control energy and health care costs, the Bush White House touts the meaningless statistic that "unemployment rates are below the averages of the 70's, 80's and 90's."

When bogus numbers won't get the job done, the MBA President is perfectly content to lie. In late 2003, a White House desperate for an election year win on Medicare deliberately misrepresented the program's costs in order to ensure passage. On December 8, 2003, President Bush rolled out a program he claimed would cost $400 billion over 10 years. Within two months, however, the White House notified Congress that the real price tag would approach $550 billion. (When Medicare actuary Richard Foster sought to present the true price tag to Congress in late 2003, then agency chief Thomas Scully threatened to fire him.) In January 2002, Bush lied about his close with relationship with disgraced Enron CEO Ken Lay. In 2004, he lied about his 2002 statement "I am truly not that concerned" about Osama Bin Laden. And just last week, President Bush denied ever having used the expression "stay the course" in regard to Iraq.

For the purposes of full disclosure, I should note that many of my close friends and business associates are MBAs and only a few them are duplicitous, lying scoundrels. But the fact remains, as Donald McCabe, the cheating study's lead author and a professor at Rutgers University declared, "Business schools have a significant problem that should be addressed."

America's problems, of course, are more profound than that. As with fish, the rot starts with the head. In this case, with our MBA President.

Despite grandiose claims from the White House regarding the strength of the U.S. economy, a flood of new data helps explain Americans' continued feelings of insecurity. While the unemployment rate (4.7%), GDP growth (2.9%) and productivity gains (2.3%)look impressive, below the surface the picture for wages and income grows bleaker still. Whether the incumbent Republicans pay a price in November for that dismal performance remains to seen.

The disturbing trends for Americans' incomes are beyond dispute. Since President Bush took office, median incomes have dropped 5.9%. That translates to working age Americans seeing their median income drop by $275 over the past year. And while a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau showed the Bush economy finally produced gains in median household income in 2005 (up 1.1% to $46,326), the improvement masked the continued downward trend for full-time workers. Falling incomes were offset only by more family members entering the workforce. USA Today summarized the foreboding meaning of the statistics:

Earnings actually fell for people working full-time. Household income rose because more people worked in the households, albeit at lower paying jobs. Median earnings of men declined 1.8% last year. For women, the decline was 1.3%.

The wage and income landscape is especially rocky for new entrants to the labor market. An analysis of Labor Department figures by the Economic Policy Institute showed that entry-level wages for high school and college graduates tumbled 4% between 2001 and 2005. The findings mirrored the Census Bureau conclusions, which revealed "median income for families with at least one parent age 25 to 34 fell $3,009 from 2000 to 2005, sliding to $48,405, a 5.9 percent drop, after having jumped 12 percent in the late 1990's."

Perhaps most alarming is the disconnect between productivity gains and wage growth in the American economy. Unlike past economic recoveries, workers have lost ground after inflation, as wages and incomes badly trailed the improvements in output. While productivity has grown at 2.4% over the past 12 months, real median hourly wages declined 2% since 2003. It's no wonder American workforce participation has remained stagnant.

Clearly, American workers did not reap the benefits of strong U.S. productivity. It is no mystery who did. As the New York Times put it:

Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960's. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as "the golden era of profitability."

Making matters worse for American workers is the uninterrupted health care crisis. The August 2006 Census Bureau report noted that the ranks of the uninsured swelled to 46.6 million in 2005 from 45.3 million one year before, a 2.9% increase. Health insurance premiums jumped by 9.2%, triple the overall rate of inflation.

As Perrspectives detailed in December, stagnant incomes and skyrocketing health care costs are just two components of an "Insecurity Index" that explains Americans' ongoing economic discomfort. With soaring energy prices, mounting personal debt and high-profile mass layoffs, these factors undermine Americans' standard of living and reinforce the precariousness of their consumption-driven lifestyles.

None of which means President Bush and the Republican Party will pay a political price this fall. But like American workers, they shouldn't expect a windfall any time soon.

On Monday, billionaire financier Warren Buffett made two important contributions to the public good. First, he announced a staggering gift of $30 billion of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Perhaps more important for America's future, Buffett came out swinging in defense of the estate tax.

During his press conference, Buffett offered a strong progressive argument in support of the estate tax:

"I would hate to see the estate tax gutted. It's in keeping with the idea of equality of opportunity in this country, not giving incredible head starts to certain people who were very selective about the womb from which they emerged.

I'm not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth when there are 6 billion people who have much poorer lives. I can't think of anything that's more counter to a democracy that dynastic wealth. The idea that you win the lottery the moment you're born: It just strikes me as outrageous."

Outrageous is a good word for it. Since 2001, President Bush and the Republican leadership have pushing to eliminate the so-called "death tax," a levy paid by only 1% of American families. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates abolition of the estate tax would burn a $1 trillion hole in the U.S. budget over 10 years. A supposed compromise version passed by the House GOP this week, which would raise the eligible estate size while cutting the rate from 45% to the capital gains rate of 15%, would be nearly as destructive. CBPP forecasts that the House bill would cost American taxpayers $750 billion in lost revenue and increased interest payments on the national debt.

For more background on the devastating budgetary impact of the Republican war on the estate tax, see the excellent CBPP slide presentation. For a discussion about the role of inheritance taxes as one of the cornerstones of a progressive society, see my piece, "Estate Tax or Dynasty Dividend."

A jury in Houston has just spoken and found former Enron CEO Ken Lay guilty on all six counts. Bush family sugar daddy Lay, who gave his close friend George W. Bush over $500,000 for his various campaigns, now faces a long stint in prison and perhaps the Grandma Millie treatment.

It will be interesting to see what President Bush has to say today, given his past denials regarding his long friendship with Lay. After all, when the Enron scandal first exploded, President Bush on January 10, 2002 offered one of the biggest whoppers of his presidency:

"I got to know Ken Lay when he was the head of the-what they call the Governor's Business Council in Texas. He was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994. And she had named him the head of the Governor's Business Council. And I decided to leave him in place, just for the sake of continuity. And that's when I first got to know Ken."

Sadly, a mountain of correspondence between Bush and Lay suggests otherwise. For more on the close relationship between George W. Bush and Ken Lay, see the Smoking Gun archives.

Signs of China's rapid growth into an economic superpower are everywhere. The latest indicator comes in a report from the China National Bureau of Statistics announcing a staggering 9.9% rise in Chinese GDP in 2005. With its $2.26 trillion economy, China has leap-frogged the UK, France and Italy to become the fourth largest in the world.

As Perrspectives has written before, China's explosive economic growth, aggressive military upgrading and diplomatic muscle-flexing pose a myriad of challenges for the United States.

From a national security standpoint, the United States may have to dramatically expand and alter it force structure to contain a resurgent China. With the Pentagon Quadrennial Defense Review due to Congress next month, the implications for American strategies, tactics and force levels are profound. Not least among these will be the unwritten security guarantee for Taiwan.

The Chinese challenge to American economic leadership and standards of living is even greater. With two consecutive years of GDP growth nearing 10%, China's massive trade surplus with the United States, $120 billion in all of 2003, reached $20 billion in the month of October alone. Increasingly, China is also America's banker, financing U.S. deficits through loans and purchases of American securities. China's dynamic economic growth has also driven explosive growth in its demand for energy, forcing prices upward as the United States and China (and to a lesser degree, India) compete to line up sources of oil.

With all eyes in the U.S. trained on Iraq and the war against Al Qaeda, managing China's coming superpower status seems to have fallen off the Bush administration's radar. It can't stay that way for long.

The American manufacturing sector took another body blow today as Ford announced massive layoffs beginning in 2007. As many as 30,000 employees at 14 Ford plants in North America, up to 21% of the company's hourly workforce of 82,000, could be impacted by 2012.

The announcement by the #2 American automaker comes within weeks of similar devastating cuts at General Motors. As at GM, the United Auto Workers agreed to dramatic reductions in health care benefits at Ford, shifting expenses to employees in a move designed to slash Ford's $3.5 billion health care bill. That agreement, inked only six weeks ago, did little to save UAW members from the axe that fell at Ford today.

While UAW foes such as Rich Lowry of the National Review blame bloated unions and overpaid workers for the decline of Ford and GM, the data tells another story. Health care and pension costs may indeed contribute up to $1500 per vehicle, but it is rejection by customers in the market place and not union compensation that has left Ford staggering and vulnerable. Ford auto sales have contracted each of the last six years, a drop over 1 million vehicles since 1999. Worldwide, Ford market share has shrunk to 18%, down from 25% a decade ago. While Ford's Mark Fields spouts a new mantra he calls "red, white and bold", the company's reputation for stodgy design and failure to anticipate the market shift away from its core SUV business has left it on the skids.

For today, at least, the market warmly received the proclamation today by Fields that his company would, "change or die." Chairman and CEO Bill Ford echoed that comment, saying, "we must reduce capacity in North America."

As workers at Ford and GM are now painfully aware, we all know what that means.

To kick-off his 2006 campaign for permanent - and dangerously irresponsible - tax cuts, President Bush crowed on Friday about his economic stewardship. "The American economy," Bush boasted, "heads into 2006 with a full head of steam."

New economic data released on the same day, however, suggests that the American economic locomotive may be experiencing some engine trouble. After a stellar November, December produced only new 100,000 jobs, roughly half of the gains anticipated by analysts.

Paradoxically, the .1% drop in the unemployment rate to 4.9% reflects weakness in the American economy as well. A happy statistic on its face, the decline in unemployment is a product of the contraction of the total U.S. labor force, which as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, shrank by 30,000 workers in December. The Bush recession and stagnant wage growth have depressed labor force participation; many Americans have simply stopped looking for work. As Clinton economic advisor Gene Sperling points out:

In January 2001, 67.2% of Americans were working or looking for work. If that number had held, there would be an additional 2.7 million people looking for work and the unemployment rate would be 6.6%-1.7% above its official mark.

President Bush concluded his sales pitch on Friday with the exhortation, "We've got to still be the greatest hope for mankind on the face of this Earth." He might want to start with the working men and women of America.

Nothing, apparently not even the growing opposition to the war in Iraq, frustrates President Bush and the Republican Party more than Americans' consistently negative view of the economy.

Despite 215,000 new jobs in November, stout 4.3% Q3 GDP growth and a whopping 4.7% gain in productivity, only 37% of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the economy. As one Wall Street analyst moaned on the RNC blog, "No matter what happens, no matter what data are released, no matter which way markets move, a pall of pessimism hangs over the economy."

And for good reason. Because right now, the American people aren't focused on economic growth; they're concerned about economic insecurity. Call it the Perrspectives Insecurity Index.

The public's dismal perception of the state of the American economy is not for want of trying from the Bush administration. A White House web site animation selectively cites data to proclaim that "President Bush's actions are moving our economy forward", "30 straight months of job gains", "over 4.4 million news jobs created since May 2003", and "unemployment rates are below the averages of the 70's, 80's and 90's." As President Bush claimed during a photo-op at a John Deere plant in North Carolina on Monday, "this economy of ours is on the move."