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LOUSY ECONOMY THREATENS DEMOCRATS
By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON-The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

How many times have we heard that one? But when we consider the country’s financial plight, that’s a cliche that is right on the money, literally,

So was James “Ragin’ Cajun” Carville back in 1992 when he posted the sign in the Bill Clinton for President campaign headquarters that read: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.”

When the two of us talked the other day, strategist-commentator Carville showed that 18 years later he hadn’t lost a quip: “More than ever, it’s the economy, stupid.”

The polls certainly bear him out. . . .ALL of them. Gallup was typical, reporting Wednesday that more than 62 percent of respondents listed economic problems as “extremely important,” ahead of anything else.

That’s why President Obama, in his Iraq mission-whatever speech, pivoted to the financial bad news and told his television audience: “Today, our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work.”

Obviously it’s urgent for his fellow Democrats, many of whom are trying to keep their jobs after the Nov. 2 congressional elections. The economy is like a raw wound that just won’t adequately heal.

Unemployment is chronic. Whatever the precise number in any given report, it translates to about one in ten people out of work. Those who do the hiring are not hiring. As a result, they become part of the self-generating downdraft, the ill wind sweeping over nearly every indicator.

The National Association of Realtors reports that existing home sales dropped an astounding 27 per cent from the end of June through July. That’s the biggest one month drop since they began keeping records in 1999—and the Association’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun predicts that “a soft sales pace likely will continue for several months.” And car sales were just as dismal. Autodata Corp.measured the worst August in 28 years.

Total economic growth? Estimates of the already paltry uptick from the last quarter have been revised downward by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The yo-yo stock market spends much of its time in the “sleeper” position. (For those who are not yo-yo aficionados, the “sleeper” position is at the bottom of the string where it just spins.)

Even the country’s birth rate is the lowest in a century and, sure enough, the National Center for Health Statistics attributes that to worries about affording a kid.

The latest Rasmussen poll shows that 48 per cent of those who replied blamed President Obama. Rasmussen calls that “potential bad news for Democratic candidates this fall.”

Gallup’s poll about the parties and Congress certainly drives the point home. Fifty-one percent of those who took part said they preferred Republican congressional candidates, compared to 41 percent who said they preferred Democrats. This is the largest Republican margin on this question since 1942 when Gallup began taking this so-called “generic” survey. Two months ago, the Democrats were on top.

Gallup also shows a Republican lead, 49 percent to 38 percent, on the all important question of who can best deal with the economy. Democrats have a long tradition of dominating that one.

Republicans are pouncing. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell chimed in: “Instead of growing jobs as promised, Washington Democrats have grown the size of the national debt, the federal government and the unemployment rate.”

The never-say-die Democratic House campaign leader, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., steadfastly insists that he is confident the D’s are not really toast because they “have been preparing from day one for what we knew would be a very tough campaign season.”

After nearly two years, the Democrats’ continued attempts to hang blame on the previous administration falls right off the ghost of George W. Bush’s presidency.

Perhaps their biggest problem involves the reality check from the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who admits: “There’s only so much that can be done.”

Quoth the Ragin’ Cajun: “No wonder everyone is kind of mad.”

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(E-mail: bob(at)hearstdc.com; on the Web:www.bobfranken.tv0

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<^

THE MUDDLED ELECTION STORY

By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON It's hard to get a handle on this year's political drama. Here's a shocker: There isn't one. Yet.

It's a work in progress and anyone who spouts the conventional wisdom of the moment does it at their own peril. We don't yet know if it will turn out to be anti-incumbent, anti-Obama, anti-Democratic. . . or if the voters are just plain mad in general.

Florida's confused primary is a case in point (I know, I know, who ever heard of a confused election in Florida?)

We can start with Charlie Crist. He didn't have a victory party Tuesday night because, well, he doesn't have a party and didn't have a victory.

Since the Florida governor-turned-U.S.-Senate candidate has turned himself inside-out to avoid having the job done for him, he doesn't get his fight for survival until November.

Crist, who was elected governor four years ago as a Republican, now is seeking the Senate seat as an independent because polls earlier this year showed that he was a likely loser in the Republican primary against way more-conservative Marco Rubio.

The Democrats nominated the son of an iconic congresswoman and four-year House member, Kendrick Meek. Meek beat the really rich guy, Jeff Greene, to win the Democratic nomination which sets up the three-way Senate contest in November: Republican Rubio, Democrat Meek and Independent Crist.

In the Republican gubernatorial contest, another of the super wealthy, former hospital executive Rick Scott, defeated Bill McCollum, the state's attorney general.

We can look at the very opposite corner of the country to Alaska to see that the nationwide narrative is all over the map. There, incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who goes beyond establishment into dynasty, is now in a role reversal. She is struggling to come from behind against upstart challenger Joe Miller in the Republican Senate primary.

The plot thickens because another main character is Sarah Palin and her Tea Partiers.

But if the Murkowski dynasty may be fading, the Quayle dynasty may be sprouting. Ben Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, won the Republican primary for an Arizona congressional seat. In a campaign ad, he called President Obama "the worst president in history" and vowed to "knock the hell" out of Washington.

And in the Arizona desert, Palin was also a big factor as she had a hand in rescuing her old mentor, incumbent Republican Sen. John McCain. Her natural ally would probably have been the far-right upstart, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who was challenging McCain in the GOP primary.

But the Grizzy Mama stuck by the Grizzled Pappa and that, plus the $20 million he spent, allowed McCain to crush Hayworth. It really gets muddled. The ``maverick'' (McCain) turned insider (McCain), the immigration moderate (McCain), who became a hardliner (McCain) was able to win the faceoff by changing face.

As for Florida, the unsolved riddle is how the Senate votes will split in the Nov. 2 general election. In a pre-primary poll, the respected Mason-Dixon survey did a three-way test. Rubio garnered 38 per cent, Crist 33 and Meek just 18.

That led Mason-Dixon Managing Director Brad Coker to tell me that ``Crist had a lot of Democrats who will drift away, particularly African-Americans, who will go home to Meek,'' who is black.

Susan MacManus, the University of South Florida political scientist, had a different scenario, pointing out to me that Meek is not popular with all Democrats, so she believes Crist can pull an upset.

``His best hope,'' she said, ``is the disenchanted of both parties, and a split of the independents.''

Let's face it, the entire country is a minefield for incumbents this year. Just ask the likes of Sen. Bob Bennett in Utah, or Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter who did his own party-switching before getting tossed out of his new Democratic home. We also have no shortage of victorious insurgents such as Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada.

But before we conclude that the best experience is inexperience, we need to consider Democratic senators like Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas), Michael Bennet (Colorado) and others of the in-crowd who are still in contention by winning their primaries.

As the remaining candidates decide how to reach into their bag of tricks, they are dealing with a mixed bag. What we have this time around is a work-in-progress.

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(E-mail: bob(at)hearstdc.com; on the Web:www.bobfranken.tv0

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ In our supposedly open system of government, the fact is that we often don’t get to see where the meaningful action takes place.

Oh sure, we watch and shake our heads at the contortions of our politicians getting twisted into knots in Congress and the White House. At least we see some of it.

But even after legislation is passed and signed, it then heads to the federal agencies whose job it is to decide how these new laws will be put into practice.

A recent investigative story written by Stewart Powell, Richard Dunham and Spencer Gaffney of the Hearst Newspapers Washington bureau examines how the bureaucrats answer far too much to lobbyists. Before they're through whittling away, the agencies have sometimes shaved the stated purpose of the law to nothing or even turned it inside out. They sabotage any chance of effectively enforcing what's left on the bones.

Full disclosure: This column is written for the Hearst News Service, independent of the news report, which was also written for Hearst. The article stands on its own as a piece of original journalism that does a great public service. It is based on in-depth reporting on the hows and whys of the cozy relationship between regulators and regulates and it gets to the shadow reality of the federal government.

The Hearst article goes into great detail about the revolving doors and big money that help the oil and gas industry keep federal officials at bay. Of the 694 lobbyists registered for the energy lobby, 434 of them have previously been federal employees.

And it's a two-way street. The Hearst piece points out that ``agency officials often are recruited from the very industries they are mandated to regulate.’’ Combine that with the heavy loads of cash used to, ah, persuade members of Congress to underfund, understaff and undermine effective enforcement, it’s not hard to see how various industries can simply flout the intent of the law.

Part of the problem is the inherent ``contradictory missions’’ of regulators where, for example, the Federal Aviation Administration for years saw itself as an advocate for the airlines. Another example: the Amtrak cabal of bankers and Wall Streeters that rides back and forth between cushy jobs at New York banks and powerful ones in Washington sees to it that their industries are well taken care of. All too often, everyone else is left in the lurch.

Typically, we only notice when something goes horribly wrong. It took the BP debacle in the Gulf of Mexico to inspire a focus on the ridiculously impotent Minerals Management Service. MMS was such an embarrassment that the Obama administration changed the name. Not only that, it divvied it up into three separate offices to minimize the conflict of interest inherent in an agency that was supposed to maximize federal royalty payments from the oil and gas industry while protecting the environment and the work force from that same industry.

Massey Coal has raised the same alarms about the inadequacies of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, but it took 29 deaths underground to do it.

Part of the problem is the news media. All too often we take the easy way out and pretend that we adequately cover Washington by presenting the antics of Congress and the personality of the president. It's too expensive to look into all the nooks and crannies, where the real power is hidden.

That's why the regulatory agency project was so important. It shed light on the regulatory agency battleground where money and conflict of interest all-too-often place an impossible barrier against safety protections and enforcement against fraud. This examination was long overdue.

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(E-mail: bob(at)hearstdc.com; on the Web: www.bobfranken.tv)

To review the recent Palin Twittergrams: re:Schlessinger: "Don't retreat...reload!" (What does that even mean?) and her constitutional privileges "ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence her" (which is almost 2cute, but hey, the Freedom of Expression she cites for Schlessinger applies 2her2.)

But when the Mamma Grizzly roared from her cave at Fox News about the lower Manhattan Islamic Center, that was a "stab in the heart" which didn't deserve the Freedom of Religion in that same very same opening sentence in the Bill of Rights.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

It almost fits into one of Palin's beloved Twitter messages. In a tweetshell it guarantees the rights 2worship, 2speak freely, 2report the news, 2peaceably assemble and petition.

What is always amazing us how politicians engage in constitutional expedience, citing that precious document when it suits their posturing and ignoring or distorting it when it does not.

That is hardly unique to those on the Right. The Left and even what remains of the Middle ground are all littered with inconvenient principles that didn't fit a point-of-view. And before we get to hard on elected officials and the wannabes, we should note that Supreme Court justices do it all the time and so do judges on all the lower courts.

It's really dangerous when someone is pandering to emotions and prejudice. It's not just Palin. In the case of the Mosque the national political zoo is full of panderers.

We need to take a breath. When someone can excite her followers by resisting a house of tolerance but supporting the use of the "N-word", we have to have to examine our INtolerance as well as those who make it a habit of exploiting it.

They play a dangerous game with their First Amendment right to free expression, but all of us have the right to express our rights to reject their rabble rousing.

Time Magazine's brand new poll gets to much more relevant fundamental issue when it shows that a full 43 per cent disapproval of Islam...not the proposed New York mosque but the religion itself.

The demagogues know that full well. But they've gotten a free pass. They've been allowed to tiptoe around our ugly true feelings and declare they are for religious diversity and all that good stuff, just against the mosque on that particular site..."sacred ground" that it is.

That is a subterfuge and they know it. Saddest of all, they've been able to terrify some candidates who are otherwise more measured but are are now showing just how craven someone can get when he's running running for his political life, say in Nevada.

By the way, the Time Magazine poll does not reflect a spike resulting from the curren controversy. Gallup last January got an identical result: 43 percent acknowledged "a little prejudice" against Muslims.

Those are the ones who OPENLY admitted their feelings. Surveys like this are incomplete because so many prefer to camouflage their true feelings, out of embarrassment or a lack of self-awareness. Even so 31 per cent acknowledged their view of Islam in its entirety was "not favorable at all"

Back in 2006, still another poll listed 38 per cent saying they would never vote for a Muslim president. We've all seen the fruits of that one, with many of President Obama's opponents getting good traction with their claim he's really a Muslim by birth and upbringing. And a new Pew poll shows that one in five believes that, thanks to incessant continuous use of the "Big Lie" tactic by the blogger blatherers, toxic talk radio hosts, Fox fantasy peddlers and so many others on the
wrong-headed Right. on talk Radio and Fox.

At the very least, most Americans don't really comprehend very much about the religion, even though the best guess is that slightly under 3 million live in the United States. And when we don't understand something, e become all-too-receptive to those exploiters who will demonize it.

Even some Ed Gillespie and Grover Norquist, as hard nosed partisans as you'll find are quoted as worrying their fellow Republicans might be overplaying their hands. They may be correct, but perhaps not, if political advantage is the name of the game. Tragically, it probably is.

As for the contention that the resistance is not based on aversion to Islam but on the "insult" claimed by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin over building at that particular site, that claim ignores similar uproars at locations around the country. It seems that each time a new proposal is discussed the locals get a bad case of the "NIMBY"s as IN "NOT IN MY BACK YARD".

And back to the New York pla:, President Obama's comments that showed sympathy to the idea drew such condemnation mainly from his adversaries that he furious back pedaled less than a day later. This is a man who has been trying very hard to repair relations between this nation and Muslim countries.

He probably needs to begin here. Until then, his words in that world will be regarded as ludicrous by those who see he West as enemy territory, populated small-minded religious bigots.

It's just what the fundamentalist crazies need to justify their violent extremism. We need to do better and open our hearts.. And not just for tactical reasons and foreign policy, but because it's right.

The indicators are so dismal for Democrats that they couldn’t be blamed if they decided to forfeit the November elections.

The immortal words of one of their own, James Carville, are being thrown right back in their faces by Republicans. Of course, I mean Carville’s 1992 declaration: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

If today’s economic situation is not in the tank, it sure looks like it may be teetering on the edge again. Pessimism reigns. The newest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that nearly two-thirds of those polled are depressed about the perceived recession.

As much as Democrats would still like to blame George W. Bush, he’s no longer president, a job that is also known as the “Blame-Taker-in Chief.” And the poll numbers show that.

Six in 10 feel President Obama’s economic policies have fallen short. This is not exactly a hospitable environment for those in his own party, struggling to keep Republicans from taking control of Congress.

There is one number that gives Democrats a glimmer of hope. That’s the puny 24 percent of voters who give the Republicans a positive mark, a new low for the Wall Street Journal’s survey. But even that glimmer is tarnished for the Democrats by their own 33 percent rating, which is pretty close to their historic bottom.

Democratic pollster Peter Hart, a member of the team that conducted the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, suggested that widespread public frustration was symbolized by the JetBlue flight attendant who used the emergency slide to jump out of his plane after it landed at Kennedy Airport following a confrontation with a passenger.

The November balloting is the “JetBlue election,” Hart said. “Everyone’s hurling invective and they’re all taking the emergency exit.

So the Republicans smell blood—and their base is stoked by their passionate belief that the country is heading toward socialistic ruin. As for the Democratic base, it’s disgruntled with little to get gruntled about. . . .or get revved up enough to vote.

Those are members of the GOP Wild Bunch. . . Senate nominees who march to the Tea Party’s drummers.

Nevada’s Angle has already accomplished the impossible by giving Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid a chance of being re-elected. McMahon, the former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO, can expect a no-holds-barred campaign against her in Connecticut.

As for Paul, in Kentucky, he’s taking a crash course in keeping his political opinions to himself after a few wisps eked out, such as his skeptical view of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After his remarks sparked criticism, he quickly announced he would not support its repeal.

The primaries in Florida and Arizona on Aug. 24 are likely to give us more evidence of the public mood.

Florida is the test of nouveau Independent Charlie Crist, who after being shunned by conservative fundamentalists as not “Republican enough,” bailed on his on his party and will run in November against the anointed Republican, Marco Rubio, and whichever Democrat emerges from the primary.

As for Arizona, the big issue is immigration. Incumbent Sen. John McCain is doing everything he can to obscure his record of moderation because he’s running against J.D. Hayworth, a red-meat conservative, former member of the U.S. House and recent the radio talk show host.

A good rule of thumb is to be wary of conventional wisdom, even if the polls back it up. Right now consensus is that this is a “Throw-the-Rascals-Out” kind of year. The best hope for the Democrats is to hammer away at the ones who want to be thrown in.

Question: What do you think about the plans of Glenn Beck to hold a "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial? Did I mention it is scheduled 47 years to the day after Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" rally on the very same spot?

To millions, that location on that date is also "Sacred aground", which will be defiled by Beck and his followers.

Glenn Beck, as we all are painfully aware is wildly popular with millions who are attracted to his rants about, among other things, race. Unfortunately his tirades are also seen by non-followers as insensitive to say the least. His attacks on "social justice" and "economic justice" and his description of President Obama as a man with a "deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture" are regarded by some as more than a few as code words for white supremacists.

And guess who will speak at this rally. You got it: the Grizzly Mamma herself, Sarah Palin, who apparently feels it OK to make a heart-stabbing speech, as long as she's plunging the knife into those who aren't among her adoring followers.

To be scrupulously fair, Beck did pay lip service to the religious freedom argument in favor of the lower Manhattan mosque, but he hastened to add he was "offended".

Apparently like his soul-mate Fox commentator Palin, offense in the name of self-serving hate mongering is no vice. That's not exactly how Barry Goldwater put it, but some conservatives have come a long way since Goldwater: backwards.

So the next time your blood starts to boil over about the mosque plans, try and ponder how the Glenn rally will insult so many who revere the struggle over civil rights. Let's bring up the same question you do: Even though you have the constitutional right to be there, should you be?

Even the hastily arranged Gulf vacation itself was more of a placation, as in placating those who complained his family time off had not included the BP besieged Gulf shores, making his ringing words of support ring hollow.

Soon after he arrived he hastened to hollow out his words from the evening before, at the White House dinner marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country" he declared, "And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances."

Right away, the opposition's usual suspects were foaming at the mouth. That was hardy a surprise, considering their close attention to polls like CNN's which showed a 68 per cent nationwide disapproval of the religious center.

House Republican Leader John Boehner: "This is not an issue of law, whether religious freedom or local zoning. This is a basic issue of respect for a tragic moment in our history."

And of course we heard from the REAL Republican leader Sarah Palin. . She, or one of her peeps tweeted "We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they".

We also must not overlook the man who jealously WANTS to be the GOP leader, Newt Gingrich. He pounced too, by accusing Obama of "pandering to radical Islam". Gingrich knows from pandering.

Now he had ignited were two fires, sand suddenly the White House felt compelled to extinguish the new one with even more wishy-washy. Spokesman Bill Burton trotted out to clarify the clarification: “Just to be clear, the president is not backing off in any way..."

Many of the president's already-worried fellow Democrats were cringing because when Obama embellishes the opposition relishes. They now have still more material for the GOP arsenal of sound bite bombs.

This was a gift to them, and not some inadvertent slip of the tongue. The Ramadan comments were prepared, refined and massaged by the President, his advisers and speechwriters and then read off the usual teleprompter. But as he traipsed about lauding the oil free sands, the uproar threw some sand in his well-oiled image machine.

Not that this is anything new about Barack Obama. He takes great pride in his reputation for trying to achieve a meeting of the minds. Sadly, in today's incendiary environment, consensus is a con, and once again, the president is painfully discovering that when he tries to please everybody he pleases nobody.

It defined a generation, but for those who missed out, a little background: It was actually spread over two years of sex-drug-and-rock-and-roll...from the 1967 release of the Beatles' incredible ``Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’’ album to the musical glory and excess at Woodstock in 1969.

The epicenter of this earthquake was San Francisco, specifically in the neighborhood around Haight and Ashbury streets, which became a magnet for all things hippie, a beacon for romanticized tolerance.

Sadly, the flowers in the air have turned poisonous. In the bad trip to Now, the times have been a-changin' and here we are in the Summer of Hate.

Instead of New Agers, it's the Dark Agers who have the spotlight. Rather than Aquarius, it's scariness for them.

They are having a field day. As the political slime season unfolds, they can target gays and Muslims and immigrants of color. The news has already handed them a trifecta of winning issues, if by ``winning’’ you mean stuff that can be exploited by shameless panderers.

Their latest ``victory’’ came in California, where a federal judge has overturned the state's ban on gay marriage. And, yes, the loss IS a victory in the wrong-is-right world of politics, because it sends juices flowing through narrow minds.

But when it comes to Constitution trivialization, they have nothing on those who favor dropping the 14th Amendment's clause that grants citizenship to anybody born here, without regard to the parents’ status. It was put there in part to protect the descendants of slaves, but in these nasty times, foul is fair game.

Is that the same John McCain who was once the moderate voice on immigration policy? Apparently all it took was his tough re-election campaign to jettison that principle and declare that the cruel idea is worth considering.

Muslims always get a chapter in the Haters Handbook. Ironic, isn't it, that it was McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, who popularized the word ``hater,’’ considering she's the one out there calling plans to build a mosque near the 9/11 site in New York a ``stab in the heart.’’ That's another entry in the reactionary hit parade.

The Summer of Love is history now, so much so, that a clever headline writer called the 40th anniversary in the ``Haight’’ the ``Summer of Love Handles.’’ Now we need to get a handle on the Hate.

To even write the word risks immediate rejection by readers or a sudden daze. But here we go: Deficit.

Before the eyes start to glaze, consider the latest projections from the Obama administration. The federal budget deficit this year will be nearly $1.5 trillion.

That’s trillion, with a capital ‘T” — and that stands for “Trouble.” That’s not music, man, it’s a dire warning of national ruin.

The numbers are staggering. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that in just nine years if we stay on course, the national debt will consume more than 3 percent of GDP, more than double the percentage this year.

The gross domestic product index measures everything American workers produce. That 3 percent — $700 billion — will go into the debt sinkhole.

Put another way, the CBO predicts that interest payments on the national debt will make up 14 percent of overall federal spending in 2020, fourth behind defense, Social Security and Medicare.

Public debt owned by foreigners comprises about 50 percent of the total. So almost half the interest payments now leave the country. That will grow dramatically as interest rates inevitably rise.

Unless drastic action is taken — and soon — calamity is just down the road. At some point we will no longer be able to continue our Ponzi-like borrowing. The standard of living for all of us will go right into the toilet. And yet the subject bores us. We have deficit-attention disorder.

No stimulant is going to help with this one unless we give it to those who somehow make doomsaying boring.

They are largely people who have spent an entire lifetime studying the stupefying intricacies of budgeting and they want to flog the rest of us with convoluted charts and incomprehensible jargon.

Here are some government moneymaking plans that our politicians will love: all gain, no pain.

Naming rights: This one is so obvious. Shouldn’t corporations proudly declare their ownership of our country with, say, the Boeing Pentagon? We could have the Goldman-Sachs Treasury Building (Citibank already has a stadium) United Health-care and Human Services, The Pfizer Pfood and Drug Administration.

Product placement: It’s along the same line. Why does that have to be a presidential seal on front of the lectern when Obama speaks? Wouldn’t a Coca-Cola logo be nice?

Real estate: It would be much easier to sell the idea of closing Guantanamo Bay prison if we could then turn it into high-end condominiums. It’s beautiful, prime beach area. GITMO Shores could become the ultimate gated community.

Capitol gains: Back home again, there is no reason to ignore the U.S. Capitol building. Anyone who has ever visited knows that over the House and Senate floors are viewing areas called “galleries.” That’s where all the human props sit during State of the Union speeches.

Wouldn’t it be easy to turn these balconies into sky boxes and sell them so those with big bucks can see whether buying Congress was worth it?

Too exotic? Then we have no choice. People will have to pay attention to the ominous warning signs. Instead of gobbledygook, perhaps we need another “Daisy” commercial.

That was the famous election ad sponsored by Lyndon John-son’s 1964 presidential campaign to paint Barry Goldwater as dangerously impetuous. It showed a little girl plucking the petals of a daisy and counting them. At the end, her voice is replaced with a harsh male “... 3-2-1-zero,” and then a fiery nuclear explosion. It ran as a paid ad just once — and it was devastating. Fast forward to now.

Maybe, instead of impossible pie charts, someone creates a modern Daisy ad. This time she’s sweetly plucking flowers in the back seat of her family minivan — until suddenly the vehicle dives off of a cliff.

Our kids can count on catastrophe if we don’t take heed of our reckless ways. If we fail to get over our deficit-attention disorder, our economy will soon have another name: bankrupt.

Bob Franken writes for Hearst Newspapers. He can be reached at bob@hearstdc.com.