On the same day that financial analysts predicted General Motors’ share price will drop to zero, it was dismaying to read that the Detroit City Council has delayed Greening of Detroit’s tree restoration work. This sense of dismay is not due to some outsized affection for trees, but because of the basis for the Council’s decision.

The Council’s action was based on protests by AFSCME Local 542, whose leaders would rather not see trees planted than to have anyone but a union member plant them. That they would prevent volunteers from planting trees in Detroit is an eloquent demonstration that even at this late stage in our economic crisis, the City of Detroit just doesn’t get it.

Volunteers are attempting to plant trees not because they want to take jobs away from union members, but because there are no jobs available, at any price. Squabbling about retaining nonexisting jobs is worse than rearranging the deck chairs while the Titanic is sinking. It’s like bribing the purser to secure a seat at the Captain’s Table for tomorrow night’s dinner while the Titanic is sinking.

Even more disturbing than denying volunteers the chance to plant trees, is the fact the contract also involved reopening the city-owned Meyers Nursery. In a city desperate for jobs it is unconscionable for a union to forestall a job-creating venture. Perhaps the Nursery wouldn’t pay union wages, but it would pay its workers something, part of which would go in taxes to pay union members.

The role of labor unions has historically been to protect the interests of working men and women. At a time when jobs are hemorrhaging, and the local companies and municipalities which provide those jobs are teetering on the brink of extinction, working men and women are ill-served when their union bosses throw up obstructions to threaten the livelihood of their members.

Planting trees won’t save Detroit. It won’t appreciably improve its chances for survival, or even markedly enhance its appearance. It is a small gesture of faith, of hope in the city’s future. Yet Council members are worried volunteers planting those trees could endanger the jobs of about 54 city forestry workers.

It is a pity Council members can’t take the same long term view of those who seek to do the planting. It takes many years for a sapling to become a tree. As they grow, and mature, trees create work for forestry workers, who nurture, prune and feed them. If there are no more trees, there will be no city forestry jobs whatsoever.

AFSCME attorney Richard Mack argued it was necessary to oppose the Greening of Detroit volunteers. If not, "the next thing you know the city would just outsource everything." What Mack doesn’t realize is that continuing to block even the slightest effort to improve the city will result in what he fears the most. If things don’t turn around, the city will "just outsource everything," including what remains of its steadily dwindling population.

Watching the election returns roll in Tuesday night, it was hard not to be reminded of that crucial scene in "Casablanca," when Ilsa Lund, snuggling against Rick’s shoulder, sighed, "Oh, I don’t know what’s right any longer. You have to think for both of us."

This is essentially what Americans were saying Tuesday. You have to think for all of us. Which is why so many of us found ourselves clinging to Barack Obama. Like Richard Blaine in the movie, Obama was a hard man to define. His origins were shrouded in mystery, and therein lay his appeal. Granted, he isn’t quite the enigma Rick was. There is no Inspector Renault to say, "I’ve often speculated why you don’t return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Run off with a Senator’s wife? I like to think you killed a man. It’s the romantic in me."

Yet Rick’s response, "It was a combination of all three," was vintage Obamanian obfuscation. We tolerated his obliquity because it served our interests. As the embodiment of hope and change, it was essential that Obama not define those qualities. Otherwise, how could so many of us pin our hopes and dreams to his presence?

Today ostensibly shrewd commentators are devoting themselves to the question of whether Obama will be able to rein in the Congressional liberals. Those few who studied the man and his history are more inclined to ask, "Why would he want to?" But for the rest, the relatively moderate, centrist Obama of the last few months allows them to hang their hopes on the presumption that this is in fact the real Obama. The rest of his life, the bulk of the statements, actions and associations of the previous 47 ½ years, mean nothing.

For others, this desperate redefinition recalls the punch line to the old bawdy joke, "Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own lying eyes?"

The fact is, we don’t know who Obama is, nor how he will govern. We can hope that his ability to deliver a compelling speech, to act on cue and move to the right spot on the platform, will translate into genuine leadership. We can hope that his failure to respond to last month’s market crash was in fact a sign of grace under pressure, and not a failure of imagination. We can hope that his condemnation of Detroit automakers for building SUV’s "because they could make a profit," doesn’t actually mean he thinks it is wrong for a corporation to make a profit. Then again, we have his comment about pharmaceutical companies, "Now, these drug companies won’t willingly give up their profits."

But that might just be the kind of thing he had to say in order to win the nomination. His every action, alliance and statement over the course of his life could conceivably have been done and made solely to reach the point where he can bring his refreshingly moderate form of unifying leadership to the fore.

One can hope. One can hope most fervently that he achieves greatness, that like Ronald Reagan’s, his sunny optimism brings a new spirit to the American people. Perhaps a nation repeating "Yes, we can," will revive our spirit, and allow us to move ever forward as a beacon and shining example to a desperate world.

One can hope. As Americans we must hope that this will be the case. The greatest benefit of this dream sequence achieving reality will be its positive impact on that segment of society most in need of a psychological and spiritual boost, that of black males. It would be a tremendous benefit for us all if an educated, articulate, and in the words of our new Vice President, "clean" black man, who is married and an active father to his children, could become the new role model for African-American men and boys.

If Obama’s election comes to be viewed not as an end, but a new beginning for African-American men and boys, then that will be a true achievement. If he manages to rise to the level of greatness he embodies for his fervent supporters, then perhaps, just perhaps, the disappointment and despair, and yes, fear, so many conservatives feel, might not, in the words of Rick Blaine, "amount to a hill of beans."

Last Sunday I was in San Francisco, watching my daughter run in the Nike Women’s Marathon. It was her first marathon, and she finished it in great style with a sprint to the finish line. My wife and I were thrilled to be along for the ride. It was great fun hopping in and out of cabs, fast-walking shortcuts, leap-frogging the route to be there to cheer her on.

Since the purpose of the race was to raise money to fight leukemia, lymphoma and other blood cancers, I exercised discretion as to when I would sneak a smoke. Somewhere around mile eight, ahead of the race, I took advantage of the down time. When I finished, I field-stripped the cigarette, as is my wont, and thinking myself a good citizen, I tossed the butt down a storm drain. A San Francisco police officer said, "Hey, don’t do that. It drains to the bay."

"Sorry," I replied. "I won’t do it again."

"You better not," he warned, resting his hand on his holster.

I said, "Don’t tase me, bro."

He said it wasn’t a Taser, it was a gun. I said that would probably be even worse, and we had a laugh. What a neat city San Francisco is, I thought, where you can joke with a cop about him shooting you. We started talking. He told me his father was a Spaniard, 90-years old, and grows grapes for local wineries. "My name is Guillermo," he said, pointing at his name, stitched on his uniform. "G. Amigo."

"Officer Friend, that’s great."

Then he rattled off a sentence in Spanish. When I said, "No comprendo," he came back with an amazing statement. "You Americans are so arrogant, you think you only need to know one language."

I said, "But you’re an American." He replied that he spoke five languages. "But you’re an American."

"I’m European, more international."

"But you’re an American, aren’t you?

He finally, grudgingly admitted that he was in fact an American citizen. He became one just before Vietnam. "Nice timing," I said, and the conversation went off in a different direction. But his original comment, "You Americans are so arrogant," ate at me for the rest of the day. I wasn’t asking him if he was a citizen, I was asking him if he was an American.

I realized this is why John McCain can’t get any traction in this race. This is why Barack Obama’s past doesn’t put people off. This is why his association with avowedly anti-American speakers and actors doesn’t hurt him. This is why his wife can get away with boasting that until recently, she had never been proud of her country. This is why our nation is so divided.

For too many Americans, the idea of identifying themselves as such is anathema. For too many Americans, the American is a fat, ignorant slob, bloviating about shopworn concepts such as individual freedom, American exceptionalism, and "land of the free, home of the brave ." For too many Americans, the very concept of America is yesterday’s news.

When Obama sneers at bitter Americans clinging to their guns and their religion, too many Americans think, "There but for the grace of God go I." When Obama runs away from America, he runs into the arms of enlightened, educated, intelligent, grown up citoyens du monde.

Officer Friend is a great guy, and by all appearances, a good cop. But he’s a lousy American, and no doubt, a proud Obama supporter.

Yesterday, during my weekly foreign intelligence briefing, which is to say while reading the Sunday New York Times, a couple of items stood out. One came at the end of a surprisingly favorable review by James Traub of Linda Robinson’s book, "Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq," which laid out the startling case that the surge was a success. Traub probably felt comfortable acknowledging what many people who don’t read The Times already knew because Robinson stated early in the book that she has no respect for George Bush.

What stood out in the review came towards the end. When describing Petraeus’s Senate testimony that the surge was working (which inspired Hilary Clinton to call him a liar), Traub made reference to the MoveOn.org full-page ad "whose headline read, ‘General Petraeus or General Betray Us?’ At the time, the military top brass . . . continued to oppose the surge; Democratic [sic] congressmen, progressive organizations and many pundits mocked Petraeus as a Bush administration shill. But Petraeus was right; and Moveon’s question sounds almost repellent in retrospect."

My reaction to that statement was that for many people it didn’t take a full year of indisputable success for that question to sound repellent. It sounded repellent from the moment we heard it.

The second notable item was in a story about political humor, or at least what passes for political humor in an era when most people’s minds have been calcified by a steady diet of television. The author, Mark Leibovich, quoted Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, who has determined that "since Mr. McCain picked Ms. Palin to be his running mate on August 29 until the debate, (Jay) Leno and (David) Letterman made her the butt of 180 jokes–or more than the other three principals on the two tickets combined in that period (16 jokes for Mr. Biden; 26 for Mr. Obama; and 106 for Mr. McCain)."

This is truly astounding. The two late-night comedians made mocking jokes about the Republican candidates 286 times, as opposed to only 42 for the Democrat ticket. Where is the balance here? Is it conceivable that Biden and Obama haven’t said or done anything worthy of ridicule? How about Biden’s ludicrous statement that President Roosevelt went on TV after the 1929 Stock Market Crash? Wouldn’t that be worthy of at least a week’s worth of mockery? Possibly. Especially if McCain had said it.

The comedians have made much sport of Palin’s assertion that having Russia as Alaska’s neighbor gives her some foreign policy experience. Granted, the statement in itself is laughable, but surely not as laughable as Obama’s statement that attending a Muslim school in Indonesia at the age of 5 gives him a unique grasp of foreign policy issues. What about Obama’s kneejerk reaction to Russia’s invasion of Georgia, that it should be turned over to the United Nations Security Council? Given that Russia wields a veto on the Security Council, doesn’t Obama’s reaction display a woeful ignorance, if not outright cowardice, highly meritous of ridicule?

Two years ago, in the run up to the 2006 elections, the nation’s media was obsessed with Representative Mark Foley’s indiscrete emails to a former page. The recipient of the emails, who had arguably seduced Foley into sending them, was no longer in the employment of Congress, was of legal age, and therefore was not in anyway a victim of a crime. This was immaterial to the nation’s media. The important thing was that a Republican was caught in a homosexual scandal.

Compare that orgy of moral indignation with the treatment being meted out to Charles Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Rangel, as those equipped with microscopes have learned, first was found to be breaking New York’s housing laws by using a rent-controlled apartment as an office. This got a little play, even in the New York Times, which printed a blurb somewhere around page 16, just after the article headlined "Alaska Oil Riggers Call Todd Palin a ‘Girlie Man.’"

Similar focus was brought to bear on subsequent revelations that Rangel has violated US tax laws in reporting income from an offshore real estate investment. Rangel’s excuse that he didn’t understand the law would be laughable if he weren’t the most influential man in Congress on the writing and imposition of federal taxes.

Imagine if Rangel were a Republican.

The title is meant to refer to our elected officials in Washington, the Senators and Representatives who turned the ludicrously huge bailout bill into an orgy of self-aggrandizing expenditure. It isn’t really fair, though, that title. It is nothing more than a gratuitous insult to pigs.

One can argue for or against the bill, which just passed the House of Representatives, on its merits. One can question the wisdom of bailing out those guilty of serious fiscal indiscretion. One can argue that the market must have the opportunity to work itself out, that the consequences, even if they extend so far as to plunge the world into a massive depression, are not nearly as severe as substantially altering, with virtually no debate, the philosophical, moral, and structural assumptions under which our economic system functions. Or one can argue that the bill doesn’t go far enough, or goes too far in the wrong direction, that it is the poor beleaguered mortgage holder who is most in need of succor.

What is beyond dispute is the fact that a three-page bill has turned into a 400-page behemoth. What on earth does a provision requiring health insurance companies to give "equal quality" of treatment to the mentally ill have to do with acting to forestall a global stultification of the credit markets? All that particular clause will do is ensure the legal system will be clogged with a trainload of lawsuits for years to come. Then again, maybe that was the intent of that provision.

In the vice-presidential Debate, Sarah Palin made frequent references to her and John McCain’s goal of ridding Wall Street of greed and corruption. While getting rid of corruption is always a good plan, removing greed from Wall Street will pretty much eliminate Wall Street. Furthermore, it misses the point. Greed didn’t cause this crisis. Hubris did. Hubris always occurs at the end of a bubble. It leads to the sort of excesses which resulted in the subprime mortgage meltdown. The important point is that the greed that needs to be eliminated is not on Wall Street, it is in Washington.

Our elected officials are morbidly greedy. Greedy for power. Greedy for glory. Greedy for the perpetuation of the legislative priesthood from which they derive their dominance. Monetary greed is manageable. It is understandable. It is an entirely human characteristic. Greed for power is unconscionable. It is dangerous to individual rights and freedoms. It is the single defining quality of Congress today.

It is time to clean house. Our system of government today is cluttered with the trappings of action which serve only to obscure the lethargy which obstructs any meaningful reform and even the pretense that Senators and Representatives hold the public’s interests at heart. Occasionally, when some crisis appears, they will bestir themselves to act, and to act quickly. Inevitably, the action they take is ill-considered and hasty, and carries with it the seeds of further damage. Think Sarbanes-Oxley. Think the financial intervention bill passed today.

Aside from making the world safe for children’s bow and arrow manufacturers, the bill, among other things, provides for the Federal Government to take equity positions in American companies, and it allows the government to determine how much individuals can earn. This was done in the name of fairness, and it will be disastrous down the road. It is the thin end of the wedge which ultimately leads to socialism.

Larding this legislation with a witches’ cauldron of special interest giveaways is emblematic of the structural flaws of our legislative system of government. It is beyond tawdry. It is despicable, and it should lead the entire nation to take recourse in the time-honored cry of "Throw the bums out." The only way to reform Wall Street is to reform Washington first, and the only way to reform Washington is through the wholesale removal of every elected official there.

Every incumbent should be voted out, and every voter should pay close attention to the behavior of those who replace them. They should be given one term in which to return to serving the people. If they don’t, then they should be voted out, too. They should be voted out in the primaries, which would result in an election with no incumbents. This process should be repeated as often as necessary until the system is fixed.

 When confronted with Russia’s Caucasian adventurism, President George W. Bush responded by cheering harder for Misty May-Traenor. Surely this has not gone unnoticed by our once and future adversaries around the world. If Bush can’t muster the resolve to counter the Russians, they must think, what can they expect from his successor, Barack H. Obama? Obama, after all, is the embodiment of those who excoriate the incumbent as a cowboy, a unilateralist, a warmonger. Those who wish us ill must be licking their lips in gleeful anticipation of the ascension of the junior Senator from Illinois.

While we don’t know the source of the first great challenge he will face, we know for certain that he will be tested, early and severely. How he responds to these tests will go a long way toward determining the future of American power and influence in the world.

One likely scenario involves China. Fresh from the airbrushed, lip-synched success of the Olympics, China’s leaders will no doubt test Obama’s resolve to preserve America’s commitment to the security of Taiwan. Soon after his inauguration, China will instigate a series of diplomatic disputes with the island nation. How Obama responds will help determine how far China is willing to go. A firm, forthright reiteration of our support for Taiwan would no doubt temper China’s aggressiveness. A timid, retiring deferral of the matter to the judgement of "the international community" will have the opposite effect. It doesn’t take too much imagination to figure out which option Obama will choose.

Once China presents the world with the fait accompli of its Taiwanese conquest, Obama will feel forced to act. Though preferring the photogeneity of JFK bravado, he will be more likely to follow the lead of the man whose second term he was elected to fill. He won’t know what to do, but he will know he has to do something. After an exhaustive analysis of his options, Obama will no doubt ask WWJD, or What Would Jimmy Do?

The answer will come quickly and clearly. We should boycott the Beijing Olympics! A great idea, flawed only by the fact that they will already have included. This is where his otherworldly grasp of nuance will come to the rescue. In a perfect melding of Carteresque resolve with the moral suasion of that other, more compatible JFK, Obama will announce that a retroactive boycott. Assembling all the American medal winners to Washington, he will personally lead them in a march to the Chinese Embassy, where they will all throw their medals over the fence onto the embassy grounds.

Having concluded that deification alone is not sufficient to keep the infantile left on board the Obama juggernaut, his acolytes in the mainstream media have upped the ante with frequent fawning comparisons of the junior Senator from Illinois to John F. Kennedy, the once-junior Senator from Massachusetts.

The similarities are uncanny, and uncannily legion. Both rose to prominence on the strength of their awesome oratorical powers. Kennedy was married to Jackie, a beautiful, classy dame wearing pearls. Obama is married to Michelle, a beautiful, classy dame wearing pearls. Kennedy had two photogenic children willing to ham it up for the cameras. Obama has two cute little girls, one of whom, according an article in "The San Francisco Chronicle," said she thought it would be "cool" to live in the White House. Both project a substantial change to politics-as-usual. Kennedy surrounded himself with intellectuals like Andre Malraux and Arthur M. Schlesinger. Obama surrounds himself with intellectuals like Chris Matthews, Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers.

Both men went to Harvard. Both men wrote books describing formative periods in their life. Both had to run against major precedent-breaking obstacles: Kennedy’s Catholicism, Obama’s African-Americanism. Kennedy gave a speech in Berlin during which he called himself a jelly doughnut. Obama wants to give a speech in Berlin, though given our more health-conscious era, insiders suggest he is more likely to compare himself to a whole wheat bagel or, in a bid for Hispanic votes, a tortilla.

Given these remarkable similarities, it is possible to project Obama’s Presidential achievements by studying Kennedy’s. Early in Obama’s Presidency, he will sign off on a CIA plan to train Iranian dissidents. He will promise them air support when they launch an attempt to overthrow the oppressive theocratic regime. Once the invasion is underway, he will renege, and the rebel forces will be slaughtered at the Bay of Unclean Flesh.

JFK fulfilled his promise to meet face-to-face with Nikita Krushchev with no preconditions. The Russian Premier was so impressed with his interlocutor’s sincerity and grasp of geopolitics that he immediately embarked on the importation of nuclear-tipped missiles to Cuba. Obama has promised to meet face-to-face with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with no preconditions. Given his own sincerity and grasp of geopolitics, it seems reasonable to assume that the Iranian President will promptly invade Iraq.

Marilyn Monroe once figuratively prostrated herself before the President while singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Since she is no longer with us, Britney Spears will have to assume the duties during a future Obama birthday celebration. Elton John will write a song for her after she dies.

After the filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority approves Obama’s proposal to raise the corporate income tax rate to 65%, the President responds to wholesale immigration of most of the Fortune 500 companies to Ireland by saying, "My minister always said all businessmen were S.O.B.’s, but I never believed it until now."

Yes, the similarities are myriad, and ultimately frightening. Given the way Kennedy’s Presidency ended, one would think Obama would shy away from such comparisons. This subject is far too distasteful to pursue, so we will leave it up to "The New Yorker" to cast any other roles.

The internecine squabble between Team Billary and the Junior Senator from Illinois is fabulous to observe for many reasons, but perhaps for none so much as its resemblance to a tale from Aesop. Aesop, you may recall, was, according to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, one of the three greatest African-Americans in history, ranking just behind Barack Obama and Jesus Christ, in that order. A noted story teller of his day, Aesop immigrated to ancient Greece in order to promulgate his fable-based moral precepts free from the oppressive white power structure in America.

The particular Fable in question is the Hound and the Bone, in which the Hound represents the Democratic party, and the bone is the ascension of that party to supremacy in both Congress and the White House. It was truly a great prize which the hound discovered, and he prowled through the woods and fields proudly displaying his treasure. All was well until he glanced into a pond where he found another dog, with a larger bone. He growled at the dog, and the dog growled back. Thinking "I shall have this bone, too," he barked at the dog, whereupon the bone he had dropped out of his mouth and was lost in the water.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The Democrat nominating process was supposed to be a coronation, the ceremonial process by which Hillary would accept her birthright. With the Republicans in disarray the path was clear, so clear that it was a small thing to "disenfranchise" voters in Michigan and Florida for having the temerity to vote too early. This wasn’t going to be anything other than a symbolic punishment. Once Hillary had the nomination locked up it would be a mere formality for the Rules Committee to vote to seat the delegations.

Then that upstart had to flourish his silver tongue, and all Hillary’s dreams proved to be just that, a fantasy. Her stumble in Iowa destroyed her myth of inevitability, and her campaign’s inability to right itself shattered the illusion of confidence. Once her claims of experience were exposed as the lies one tells oneself to get to sleep at night, the only thing Hillary had left was a gift for making people hate her. Surprisingly, this hasn’t proved enough to put her over the top.

On the other side of the equation, Obama rose from obscurity on a raft of platitudes to become the hope for a downtrodden nation. With time, the interpolation of hope with change and the future with today began to suggest to some that there was no there there. What does Obama represent? What does he believe? As people started to ask the questions, and as the answers started to appear, some began to suspect perhaps he wasn’t the gentleman they were expecting.

Today the Democrat race looks like a scene from one of those old westerns, where the bad guy points his gun at the innocent farmer or saloon keeper, and says "Dance," while firing his six-gun at his victim’s feet. Hillary and Obama are both dancing to today, but they are firing at their own feet. It makes for good cinema, but bad politics, and already Sheriff McCain is polishing up his badge before riding in to rescue the townspeople.