Obama appointees falling short

Treasury Secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, is another in a growing cast of characters who isn't doing President Obama's popularity ratings much good these days.

Yesterday, Geithner took a beating in Congress. Seems elected officials from both parties are getting tired of Geithner claiming the economy is improving while constituents back home provide a more realistic view of how dire things actually are.

Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Tex.) went a step further after others had called for Geithner to step down. "I don't think that you should be fired," he told Geithner. "I thought you should have never been hired."

Geithner fired back several times in a snippy manner, mostly shooting blanks that reflected poorly on him and the president. His only defense seemed to be that it's not his fault the economy continues to falter. He, like other Obama appointees, continues to blame the Bush administration for all that ails us. It's getting old.

We elected Obama, not another Republican, not another Bush. As a nation, we chose to go with change rather than the status quo. But thus far, the change isn't working, particularly in the economy, and it seems no one is willing to accept responsibility for making things worse.

Obama's other lieutenants also seem to be squirming under scrutiny lately.

Take the recent grilling of Attorney General, Eric Holder by a Senate Judiciary Committee as an example of another Obama official who failed to rise to the occasion when defending his decision to try accused Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in federal court in New York rather than through traditional military means.

Never mind that the trial will cost about $75 million in police protection alone. Never mind that there are many who believe the trial will provide a platform for terrorists to spread their lunacy worldwide or might disclose classified intelligence procedures. Opponents of the decision see the civilian trial as Holder's attempt to criminalize war.

In Obama's quest to paint us as a kinder, gentler and just nation to the rest of the world, he and Holder appear to be ignoring average Americans' sensibilities.

“We need not cower in the face of this enemy,” Holder said in defense of his decision.

Huh?

Who is cowering? Holder is either missing the point or diverting the attention from the real concerns, of which there are many more than I listed. These are the same type of smoke-and-mirror games the Bush administration played.

One of the things I was looking forward to with an Obama administration was an upgrade in intellect and compassion, and a decrease in politics as usual. However, whenever I hear Holder or Geithner speak, I usually feel worse about the direction in which we're going. When I read about a government-appointed task force recommending fewer mammograms for women, I have to wonder if there are some shenanigans going on in order to test the waters on public health insurance proposals that might include some form of rationing.

It is clear to anyone with any common sense that the economy is not improving. We have an administration that is apparently more focused on other things, such as how we're perceived worldwide, than it is about job creation. We have government agencies that are more concerned about political correctness than they are about removing threatening and mentally unstable people from the military.

I don't feel any safer from terrorism because of Obama's worldwide goodwill trips or Holder's legal decisions. I don't feel political correctness is making us a smarter country. I don't feel the unemployment rate is going to come down because we've bailed out some large companies with taxpayer money. We have to do more for small businesses, yet that concept seems to escape Geithner, despite the well-known fact that small business hire the most people. I don't feel the future is bright as long as we continue to grow state and national deficits.

Vice President, Joe Biden, and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, also have not appeared up to the tasks at hand, but that's a post for another day.

Unlike radio personality, Rush Limbaugh, I want Obama to succeed. I think most Americans do. It serves us all well as individuals and as a nation if unemployment is low and national defense is strong. It would have been nice for societal and business playing fields to become more level after years of Bush catering to the privileged. But Obama hasn't created a sense of fairness in business, government or anywhere else. At least not yet.

I was never comfortable with Obama's cabinet selections and other appointments that he made at the start of his presidency. While I thought he himself might have the right stuff to get us out of a growing mess, I had little confidence that his recycled hires would bring enough new ideas to the table to enable positive change.

It's time to start judging political leaders on performance, not politics, speeches, race or age. And part of that performance has to do with who they surround themselves with. A good manager hires smart, honorable people. Thus far, Obama doesn't appear to be a great manager. One of the criticisms of him during the campaign was that he lacked executive experience. Well, judging from his hiring track record so far, those concerns appear to have been legitimate.

Blogging in the dark

My blogging experiment has been going on for nearly three months. In that time, I've learned a lot, almost all of it positive or useful in some way. I hope some of what I have learned while blogging will assist me in eventually landing a decent job, as it seems online skills are pretty much mandatory now, particularly in the news business.

The negatives have been few. Permitting anonymous comments was a mistake in that it allowed too many unfiltered, hit-and-run remarks at the start. However, making it a little tougher for readers to post comments by using certain restrictive blog settings has apparently killed comments entirely, even those from registered users. Trying to find a balance between being open and keeping things in good taste is something very difficult to achieve on the web.

Blogging is also time consuming. I am a bit of a news junkie, so reading takes up a fair portion of my morning. But then commenting on what I've read takes even more time -- anywhere from another 20 minutes to an hour or more depending on the length of the post. While the bulk of my day is spent searching and applying for jobs, blogging adds to amount of time my eyeballs are glued to a computer screen. Not all that healthy.

However, the biggest challenge with blogging is in getting people to visit the site and to return once in a while. Without advertising, building an audience seems nearly impossible for a general-topic blog like this. It has been a humbling experience for me because I thought I had enough interesting things to say to build at least a modest community here through word of mouth. As you can see by the numbers on this chart (above), monthly visits to the site are minimal relative to the traffic that other sites receive. And November is shaping up to show a slight decrease, which is discouraging. Even my friends rarely check out the blog, which is probably something I need to reflect on a bit more.

It seems it is much easier to get a reaction by just writing something quick and shallow on Facebook, where there is a captive audience with little time to read long posts.

Various folks have offered advice on how to create more of a buzz and interaction here. My intentions were not to get people to come here through trickery or sensationalism, but to rather focus on the issues of our time (including subject matter from my personal life) with the occasional veering off to something outside of the news. I have also touched on a lot of journalistic issues that I thought would be of some interest to those in the newspaper or media profession. This approach and these topics, however, don't seem to get the viral reaction most bloggers seek.

Hopefully, I will soon be working again and either be blogging on some company's time as part of my job duties or leave the blogging world to pursue some other endeavor. What I won't do is continue to fuel this general-topic blog without an audience or any feedback. I don't want this blog to become nothing more than an electronic a diary.

I have also decided that any future blogs will be more specific. Perhaps I will do a Washington Redskins blog or a commuter blog for Northern Virginians, where there is a natural audience already in place. Seems that unless you're a celebrity, opinionated blogs about news and one's life just don't have the right stuff to go viral, not even on a small scale.

Memories of a mountain

I am not exactly a world traveler. However, I have been to a few beautiful places over the years. From the Florida Keys to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, there are plenty of East Coast sights that are pretty inspiring. But perhaps the most breathtaking place I have seen in the East is in northern New Hampshire.

Mount Washington is known as the "Home of the World's Worst Weather." It holds the record for the highest recorded wind speed (231 mph). I visited the mountain in early June about 17 years ago. At the bottom of the mountain, it was a comfortable 70 degrees. At the top, the temperature dropped to below freezing. Along the way, I picked up a rock and put it in my pocket. I still have it.

Until recent years, I moved around a lot. Possessions have fallen by the wayside as a result. But for some reason, I kept that rock. When my cat discovered it the other day, and decided to start playing with it, I took it from him so that he wouldn't break another tooth. As I picked it up, memories of the the mountain came to mind, and I thought, maybe that is the value in material objects -- they instantly connect us to happy events in our lives and take the edge off of current-day realities and stresses.

The Mount Washington Hotel at the base of the mountain is almost as majestic as the mountain itself. When I first saw it, I thought of the hotel in the movie The Shining. But it's even more grand and far less haunted than that.

However, when I visited the hotel, there was something unexpected waiting there. Chipmunks. They were inside the hotel, running around the lobby, down the hallways and sliding themselves under the doors into the guest rooms. I asked the hotel people about the small critters and they responded in a carefree tone, indicating that the chipmunks are simply part of the hotel. Because the building was so old, vast and accessible to the small animals in this great wilderness, hotel management decided the chipmunks would become part of the ambiance of the place. They made little effort to get rid of them. It was a novel idea but a little disconcerting even for an animal-rights supporter. After all, who wants chipmunks nibbling on their toes in the middle of the night?

At the top of Mount Washington there is a list of all the folks who have died while camping or hiking along its trails. There is a weather observatory and pictures of what it's like there in the winter. Harsh does not begin to describe what a January day looks like on the summit.

Yet, in the summer and early fall, Mount Washington is welcoming. It rises up from the Presidential Range in an inviting manner. At under 7,000 feet, the summit is not in the same league as the Rockies, but it is nonetheless impressive as you look out into the clouds.

Most adults still read newspapers

A new Scarborough Research study has found that 74% of adults (about 171 million) in the U.S. read a newspaper in print or online during the past week. The percentage is even higher among affluent folks. Yet, newspaper companies continue to struggle to find new revenue streams and are still shedding jobs.

The newspaper business seems to be one of the few industries that produces a product (credible information) that people want and routinely use, yet it still can't seem to financially right itself enough to satisfy boards of directors and nervous investors. Despite massive layoffs and other cost-cutting measures that have watered down content, profits remain flat because of the lack of advertising due to the recession. Circulation is down because of free news offered online, but circulation is not the main source of revenue for most papers.

However, one must keep in mind that newspapers historically have outperformed many other businesses in terms of profit margins. Journalists are generally paid a lot less than comparably educated folks. Most newspaper buildings are modest to say the least. Amenities and perks are few except at the largest media companies.

People go into journalism for various reasons, but money is generally not high up on the list. When a journalist loses his or her job, it's extra painful because it's unlikely that they have accumulated enough savings to ride out an extended storm. And we are in the mother of all storms right now.

What some papers are experiencing in this recession are margins more in line with other industries. The panic, which has included thousands of layoffs, does not seem to be as warranted as some might think.The companies carrying the most debt are the ones in the most trouble. Laid-off workers are paying the price for the mistakes made by people at higher pay grades. But some of the smaller chains are getting by because they did not overspend during the good times. Many newspapers, big and small, are still profitable. If you didn't follow the business closely, you might think newspapers were like certain automakers, losing millions every week. That simply is not the norm for most publishers. Some newspapers that were hurting the most have closed their doors. But most live on.

There is a necessary transition more than an extinction going on in newsrooms, but tell that to people, like myself, who lost their jobs after 20 or 30 years and are struggling to find new ones. I support that transition to digital-news gathering and high-tech delivery systems, but loathe the way some companies are going about it.

After the loss of so much institutional knowledge via layoffs, one has to wonder what condition the business will be in when the smoke clears. Will readers still be there if content becomes less credible? Will investigative reporting be deemed as too costly? Will journalism schools bother teaching the basic principals of fair reporting and artful photo editing, or will they just offer courses in how to design web sites and sell pop-up ads? Will journalists have some life experience and perspectives that enrich their stories, or will everyone over 50 be forced out of newsrooms? Will front pages become massive advertisements? As a side note, I always found it admirable that Google refuses to put a single ad on its home page. They see creative and marketing value in keeping the page pristine.

I am convinced that for news products to remain viable, the basics need to be taught in universities and on the job by seasoned journalists. Just as an astronomer needs to understand math, a web designer better receive some instruction on libel, story editing, headline writing and freedom of information laws. Those building blocks help form strong news products that distinguish themselves from supermarket tabloids and off-the-wall blogs. I fear some decision-makers are losing sight of that and are therefore their own worse enemies in terms of ruining newspapers.

Whether the news is in print or online, content is a valued product that takes a diversity of talented people to produce, design and sell. When I see organizations like The Associated Press laying off a 70-year-old photographer, as it recently did, I fear something other than a paycheck is being lost. Many newspapers try hard to acquire ethnic and racial diversity in their workforce, but seemingly do little protect older workers anymore. It wasn't always that way.

The Scarborough study proves there is still an appetite for news. Walk into almost any coffee shop or onto any commuter train and you will see people reading the paper. It's up to industry leaders not to wreck the business while trying to survive the recession. If traditional companies continue on the path of torching everything in sight in order to improve bottom lines, I believe media startups will spring up to satisfy the public's need for news -- online, on Kindles and iPhones, and yes, even in print to some degree.

Too much Palin, too few jobs

This is why President Obama can't allow himself or the economy to fail.

As Sarah Palin, the former Republican candidate for vice president, continues her book tour, it has become painfully obvious that she has not boned up on domestic or world issues since embarrassing herself time and time again during the 2008 presidential campaign. When asked about Jewish settlements by Barbara Walters yesterday, Palin answered the question like a fourth-grader, clearly showing she is still not able to articulate her position on complex issues. Her answer to almost everything seems to be to cut taxes.

When I first heard Palin speak at the 2008 Republican Convention, I thought, OK, not bad. She seemed down to earth, had a bit of a sense of humor and appeared to be a different kind of politician. Just proves how wrong first impressions can be. Later found out that she condones shooting wolves from helicopters and bases her knowledge on foreign affairs by looking at Russia from her front porch.

It quickly became clear that Palin was faking it during the campaign. She didn't have much understanding the of the world, and this led to people questioning John McCain for choosing Palin as a runningmate. This is not to say she isn't a decent mother or neighbor or basketball player. But when in came to national politics, Palin was out of her element. Now she's trying to reverse that perception by writing a book that blames the McCain campaign for forcing her into roles she wasn't comfortable with. Like a point guard in basketball, she's looking for a crack in the defense. It appears she is trying set herself up for a run at the White House by bolstering her "rogue" image and slinging mud at the people who put her in the national spotlight.

Now with Obama's popularity declining, and unemployment wiping out middle class folks by the millions, the stage is set for voters to do something more drastic in 2012. In horrid times, voters do desperate things (see Nazi Germany). Just as Obama was the polar opposite from George W. Bush, a president who had trouble speaking, the extreme contrast of a potential Palin presidency might appeal to the masses if Obama doesn't right the ship. And my confidence in Obama has been greatly shaken as he continues to run up the deficit. He has not cleaned up the lobbyists or trimmed governmental fat. He has not instituted any policies that have led to job creation.

Fancy speeches aren't going to put bread on the table of Americans. Obama traveling around the world isn't going to get people back to work. For Obama to get reelected, people need to feel reasonably secure again. According to the polls, Americans are not feeling good about the future despite electing a president who was suppose to be all about change, hope and a new era in politics. Hasn't worked out very well so far, but he still has about three years to improve things and to save us from Palin. The key is to get people back to work while maintaining our homeland defenses. If he can do those two things, he will be easily reelected.

Unfortunately, we live in a country that is fascinated by idiots, and sometimes these morons come along at just the right time to cause costly disruptions as we saw with the balloon family a few weeks ago. Whether it's the "octomom" or "balloon dad," as long as these people have some sort of shtick and thirst for fame, they will always have followers. It's too bad the media is obsessed with giving the Al Sharptons of the world a platform. But the media is only reacting to what sells. And apparently these publicity-seekers get ratings. I just hope they don't get votes.

We live in time when we need more than shtick and unhealthy ambitions from our leaders. Maybe a Palin-Octomon ticket in 2012 will be the end of the world as we know it. Perhaps there is something to this Mayan calendar stuff.

Another shattered American dream

ABC's Nightline aired a story titled "Families in Foreclosure" last night. Glad to see the mainstream media reporting more stories like this, but wish they wouldn't wait until 11:30 p.m. to do so. This stuff needs to be in prime time and on every front page of every newspaper, which maybe will force people, particularly government leaders, to wake up.

You can watch the video here: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/

A Mason, Ohio couple and their young daughter, son and family dog are featured in the piece. They didn't lose their home because they bought too big of a house, drove new cars or were shopaholics drowning in credit card debt. This isn't a story about some slimy mortgage company that conned them into something they couldn't afford. They lost their home because of a perfect storm that is becoming all too common.

Neighbors were in tears watching the family pack their belongings. Apparently, these were modest, well-liked folks. No country clubbers or CEOs with golden parachutes in this humble neighborhood.

Tears flowed again when the parents walked the young girl to her bus stop for a final time. I don't know how parents explain these things to children.

The husband, a veteran, hurt his back badly while on the job at a warehouse. While on disability leave, his firm merged with another company. That created downsizing and layoffs. He lost his job. Meanwhile, his wife has Crohn's Disease, which has hospitalized her 19 times in 20 years. Her medical bills began piling up and the couple was evicted from their modest $115,000 townhouse. The show documents their last few days in their home.

Fortunately, the couple was able to move in with a family member. But you could tell that losing their home was nonetheless painful and tragic. Another of those life scars we all accumulate at sometime or another. Still, they did have shelter in the aftermath. Could have been worse.

One has to wonder where others, without family members to take them in, will go when they lose their jobs, savings and homes.

Once again, another American family, through no fault of their own, has fallen victim to corporate downsizing, unmanageable medical bills and just bad luck. These tales are increasing at an alarming rate, hitting closer and closer to home, and are eating away at the core values that made this country strong.

As a journalist and quasi blogger, I consider what is happening now as the biggest story of our generation, yet it still doesn't get the play it should. Judging from my own declining blog traffic, it appears people just want to stick their heads in the sand about the economy, unemployment and the domino effect of it all.

Meanwhile, the president is continuing his globetrotting ways and the deficit is getting bigger by the second, which potentially means if we ever get out of this recession, rampant inflation will follow. Most economists believe taxes are going to have to go sky high in future in order to pay for all the government spending going on now. Interest rates on mortgages and car loans could return to the upper teens, where they were in the late 1970s and early 80s.

There are growing reports that those who crossed the border to come here in recent years for work are going back to Mexico to find jobs. More astonishingly, those in Mexico are now sending what little money they have to help out relatives in America who have fallen upon hard times.

From Mason, Ohio to Southern California to the shores of Florida, the situation is the same. And when I see stories like the one last night, I wonder what the future holds for my own daughter. She is well educated and hard working, yet I don't know if that's enough anymore.

For folks my age in similar predicaments, time is our biggest enemy. I hear the clock ticking every minute of every day.

I think the American dream is being rewritten with each story like the one in Mason, Ohio. I don't know what the final chapter will read like, but I know the cast of characters is growing more than most people realize.